Maison Les Alexandrins, AOC Côte Rôtie, Rouge, 2022
A partnership between three winegrowers from the Rhône Valley – Nicolas Jaboulet, Guillaume Sorrel and Alexandre Caso – Maison les Alexandrins produces northern wines in a style at once contemporary and timeless, always from exceptional vineyards unearthed by Alexandre Caso, a specialist in the terroirs of the northern Rhône Valley. Classics with a twist, these wines and how they are aged and blended are guided by the quest for perfect harmony from a very young age. Most of our vines grow in the south of the appellation, in the Côte Blonde and Coteau de Tupin sectors.
The granite parent rock is covered in places by schist but also by sand and chalky soil.
Côte-Rôtie has been an Appellation d'Origine Contrôlée in the northern Rhône Valle since 1940. Starting life on the right bank of the Rhône, Côte-Rôtie wines forge their character from the appellation's extremely steep slopes, which in places reach gradients of over 60°. The very narrow vineyard is planted in terraces just a few dozen vines wide. Only a few kilometres from Lyon, this is the northernmost appellation of the Rhône Valley.
Our aim here is to produce consistently refined wines offering elegance and finesse.
- Maceration and fermentation for about 20 days with pumping over for the first few days and then punching down towards the end.
- Ageing for 15 months in one year-old barrels and in demi-muids (60-litre capacity barrels).
Beautiful deep-red colour with shiny reflections. Very elegant, the nose offers a superb aromatic bouquet with aromas of small red fruit punctuated by notes of smoked bacon and cold ash. Plenty finesse on the palate, dense, intense, suave, with silky and velvety tannins and a long finish supported by good acidity. A wine definitely under the sign of elegance.
This wine will go perfectly with a tender lamb packed with flavour.
This wine should be decanted at least an hour before serving to reveal its fullest expression. Serve at 17°C. Drink young.
Syrah : 98 %
Viognier : 2 %
Darker fruits (blackberries, black cherries), graphite, smoked earth, and peppery notes all emerge from the 2020 Côte Rôtie, a solidly built, medium-bodied, balanced Côte Rôtie. It has good purity and precision on the palate, as well as fine tannins, and will benefit from just short-term cellaring.
Jeb Dunnuck
, 91/100
, 2022-12-15