2021 Northern Rhône

Alain Graillot has long reigned as Crozes-Hermitage’s most respected grower. His sons Maxime and Antoine now run the ship and are making Crozes par excellence. Their Crozes is sweetly fruited, with excellent depth. It always sits in the red spectrum of fruit, where all the best Crozes find themselves. It has structure, but also an effortless tenderness, thanks perhaps to its whole bunch fruit (the influence of Alain’s training at Domaine Dujac?).

Alain Graillot has long reigned as Crozes-Hermitage’s most respected grower. His sons Maxime and Antoine now run the ship and are making Crozes par excellence. Their Crozes is sweetly fruited, with excellent depth. It always sits in the red spectrum of fruit, where all the best Crozes find themselves. It has structure, but also an effortless tenderness, thanks perhaps to its whole bunch fruit (the influence of Alain’s training at Domaine Dujac?).

This is the second of the domaine’s signature cuvées (the other is Cornas Les Chailles). It comes from the old vines planted further up the slopes at altitudes ranging from 250-400m. The wine shows old vine intensity, twinned with the precision of the 2021 vintage.

This domaine only makes one wine from across the Côte Blonde and Côte Brune, and they throw everything they’ve got at it. In fact, they are the only domaine still producing just one blend in Côte-Rôtie, and when you taste the wine, you know they are fully justified in continuing this tradition. Bernard has recently retired, and his son, Pierre, is clearly hitting his stride. He says 2021 was a difficult year in the vineyard: frost, rain, disease… it had it all, and required a huge amount of work. But in spite of this, he says he’d take a ‘21 every year for the rest of his career, so pleased is he with the final wine. It is fresh and juicy, with some of the most fondant, supple tannins we tasted in the 2021 vintage. Don’t miss.

This has become a firm favourite, not only for its outstanding value for money, but also for its sweetly-fruited, supple and delicious style. It’s everything we look for in a Crozes. The vines are all clustered in the northern sector of the appellation on granitic soils at high altitude (between 120-300m). This resulting wine has charming red fruit, with a juicy, bright drinkability. Highly recommended.

In 2021 this has a delightful herbal freshness entwined with the red berry fruit. It comes from granitic slopes in the heart of Cornas. It has no new oak and is always the most floral and forward of the Courbis Cornas wines.

For those seeking sleek Cornas that has the body and structure to age but the open fruit to approach from youth, this is your wine. It is the most refined of the Courbis Cornas wines, and with a well-judged 40% new oak wrapped around the sweet fruit, giving it savoury, toasty depth.

This tiny cuvée is the jewel in the crown at this estate. It’s tough for any young domaine to buy vines in Côte-Rôtie these days, and only the very brave attempt it. Graeme and Julie now have two tiny parcels, and this cuvée has already won them much praise as the new kids to get seriously excited about. The 2021 continues their strong form. It is restrained, tightly coiled, and serious. It will need more time than the rest of their wines to open up, but will unfurl in magnificent splendour.

This is grown in kaolinite soils, a clay-limestone soil that only accounts for around 1% of Crozes-Hermitage. These white soils result in highly mineral wines. In 2021 Guillaume lost 40% of his crop to frost here, and unusually, applied full destemming to the fruit (the domaine is usually associated with whole bunch fermentation). The result is a fresh, crunchy, and vigorous Crozes, saline rather than spicy, and driven by a sappy minerality.

This is arguably Côte-Rôtie’s most famous vineyard. In 2021, this magnificent Rostaing cuvée bursts with cranberries and nutmeg spice. Grippy little tannins give it a certain austerity in its youth.

This comes from many parcels dotted around the central and southern part of the appellation. Sylvain intelligently handles his fruit: the young vine bunches are destemmed, while the older vines’ stems are kept intact, combining them to produce a highly juicy, perfumed style. It's a spicy Syrah, with the freshness of the 2021 holding it in balance.

There is something magical here: it is at once aromatically precise, and energised with a wildness, reminiscent of garrigue herbs. As usual, it is a blend of 15 different parcels around Cornas, which Stéphane vinified separately, only blending at the final moment before bottling. Great freshness and balance.

This comes from a selection of 100-year-old vines in some of Stéphane’s best parcels, Champelrose, Eygats, and Combe. It follows in the same vein as the Cornas, but with greater presence of tannins and drive. It will therefore need longer in bottle to reach its peak. Hugely elegant, mouth-coating, and intense.