Saint-Joseph, Maison Les Alexandrins 2023

A mouthful of dark summer fruits with a savoury twist. Blackberries crushed in the hand, a scattering of peppercorns, a hint of sun-warmed granite. This Saint-Joseph has the elegance of a cool vintage, yet its fruit whispers of long, lazy afternoons. A wine of contradictions, but thoroughly charming ones. It's a wine born on steep slopes, where gnarled Syrah vines cling to the earth. Here, within sight of the Rhône River, the grapes ripen slowly, the resulting wine a careful dance of ripeness and restraint. Maison Les Alexandrins ages their Saint-Joseph in oak, not to dominate, but to gently soften the wine's rough edges. Think of it as the lightest touch of sandpaper on a splintered plank, revealing a smoother character within. The result is a Syrah that's neither brash nor shy, but sits squarely in that happy place where fruit and earthiness coexist in effortless balance.

A Saint-Joseph like this deserves a crisp autumn evening, a crackling fire, and a slow-roasted shoulder of lamb studded with rosemary and garlic.

Maison & Domaines Les Alexandrins, something of a mouthful to say, is the result of a progressive collaboration, starting in the early 2010s, between three leading lights of the northern Rhône: Nicolas Jaboulet, Guillaume Sorrel, and Alexandre Caso. Their focus is on wines that truly express the character of the northern Rhône and they’re fortunate to be able to source fruit from the region's best vineyards, across some of the major appellations, to achieve this objective. It’s a straightforward goal, easy to say - less easy to do, to make wines that are an honest, expressive, and genuine showcase of the Rhône's unique terroir, but these guys seem to have the knack.