Skip to main content

Buy any 6 Bottles and get Free Ground Shipping

Domaine des Pierres Seches Saint-Joseph Sainte-Epine 2016  - First Bottle

Reviews

94 Jeb Dunnuck -
Cut from the same cloth, the 2016 Saint Joseph Sainte-Epine offers complex notes of black raspberries, toasted spice, lavender, and violet notes, with subtle gamey, almost Cote Rotie-like bacon fat and floral notes. Elegant, medium to full-bodied, silky, and beautifully balanced, it too will drink well for a decade or more. This surpasses the awesome 2015 and is a rock star of a 2016. The young Burgundy-trained Sylvain Gauthier has hit some home runs with his latest 2017 whites and 2016 reds, and this is another up and coming estate readers need to have on their radar. Pulling from just five hectares of vines, quantities are unfortunately limited, but these are well worth the extra effort to track down. Gauthier didn't start making wine until 2007, so the quality coming from the estate today bodes incredibly well for the future.
92 Vinous -
Lurid ruby. Dark berries, potpourri, peppery spices and a hint of olive on the highly perfumed nose. Juicy, penetrating and sweet, offering intense blackberry and cherry liqueur flavors and a smoky mineral nuance that gains strength with air. Supple tannins give shape to an impressively persistent, mineral-laced finish that strongly repeats the dark berry and spice notes.

Technical Details

  • BlendSyrah
  • WinemakerSylvain Gauthier
  • CountryFrance
  • RegionRhone Valley
  • Sub-RegionCheminas
  • AppellationSaint-Joseph
  • VineyardSainte-Épine
  • Farming MethodHand-harvested
  • Aging/CooperageAged for one year in older French oak barrels (three years old)
  • Alcohol14%

Domaine des Pierres Seches Saint-Joseph Sainte-Epine 2016

Rhone Blend  |  France
JD94, VN92

Too late, we are SOLD OUT!

The talented Sylvain Gauthier works his 80+ year-old vines from the tiny lieu-dit “Sainte-Épine” made famous by the likes of Delas, Gonon and Trollat. From the already classic 2016 vintage (fantastic, as you likely are aware) this is a wine that will just KNOCK you out when you taste it. This is astoundingly terrific for just under $50 --- $149.85 per 3-pack DELIVERED!

This is such a lovely, powerful, minerally, brilliant wine. Palate-wise, this has a lot in common with the fabled Hermitage, with its deep concentration and layered texture, but it also sports some of Cote Rotie’s signature savory qualities. Saint-Joseph shares many similar traits to Hermitage, with its high elevation, granitic soils and steep slopes. Today’s single vineyard, Saint-Épine, sits directly across the Rhone river from Hermitage in one of the most important townships in all of Saint-Joseph - St. Jean de Muzols.

Purple/black and exploding with juicy, at-peak-ripeness boysenberry and black raspberry, deeply savory minerality, crushed flower petals, lavender, cured meat and liquified rock...long and lingering, with just a bit of chewy, but well integrated tannin that implies a decade or more of life with ease. Truly a wine that drinks WAY over its price and one that can stand toe to toe with some of the very best wines being made in the region today  -- if you love the Northern Rhone, you need this in your cellar for drinking and loving while your $150+ Chave and Guigal wines age!

About the Producer

Winemaker Sylvain Gauthier cares for his 13.5 acres of land according to organic practices. He started his micro-domaine in 2007, the name “pierres séches” inspired by the many hand-built stone walls that support vineyard terraces in the region.