Our Rhône Again (Naturally)
LA Roche Buissière
Located northeast of Vaison-La-Romaine in the southern Côtes du Rhône, Antoine Joly and his wife Laurence work 18 hectares of organic vineyards planted with Grenache, Syrah, Mourvedre and Cinsault. They maintain a freshness and lightness in their wines by dedicating themselves to very intense vineyard work, allowing to harvest earlier, resulting in less concentrated wines. They hand-harvest, don’t use synthetic yeasts, and don’t fine or filter.
Their new 2019 vintages just landed - as well as a refill of the 2018 Petit Jo, all will be available on our physical & digital shelves this week.
We had a chat:
"After an awful year 2018 where we have lost big amounts to mildew, 2019 was better, but we did struggle with a long heat wave of four months without a single drop of rain. As a result of that we have harvested very early and very fast. We've had a total of 25 staff and have finished in 11 days.
"The 2019 Rosé is a blend of Grenache, Mourvedre and Cinsault from 15-20 year old vines grown on clay-limestone and silt. We've used whole grapes, which were pressed straight away and then went directly into tanks. The fermentation took place for 15 days. The idea was to create a light and easy drinking rosé.
"The 2019 Premices is made of 90% Grenache and 10% Cinsault. We have added Cinsault this time in order to bring more freshness. As usual, it was the first cuvée we have released this year, as it was the first one to be harvested. For this cuvée we usually do very short macerations, which helps achieve a light colour and fresh juice. The maceration took place four days in total. After 72 hours, we started to take the juice out of the tank, one hectolitre per day, while leaving the whole grapes inside to keep fermenting further. Like this we had constant fresh juice being created. We have been doing this for four days in total until all the juice was out. The fermentation was also very short: 12 days - which we call 'rosé style'.
"Both of these cuvées are fresh and easy wines, perfect for summer and are best served cold.
"The 2018 Petit Jo is made from a blend of 50% Syrah - 50% Grenache on a clay-limestone terroir (with a very varied texture: marl, sand or silt) situated between 300 and 450 metres above sea level. It's a wine perfect for sharing with friends and family: easy-drinking with notes of red fruits and spices.
"All three cuvées are aged in tanks, are unfined and unfiltered, and had a total of 10 mg/l of sulfites added at bottling.
"So far this year is looking good for us, we haven't had any frost or mildew this year. We are hoping for a comeback of our Petite Jeanne cuvée, named after our daughter, which we weren't able to make for the last two years due to grape shortages."