Winemaker Notes
Deep red with complex with dominant black fruit and delicate oak aromas. A pure and intense nose and a powerful attack on the palate. Round and elegant tannins. A veritable success. Fresh and powerful. Will become more refined with age.
Pair this wine alongside red meat, game and cheese.
Professional Ratings
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Jeb Dunnuck
The 2017 Saint Joseph Lieu-Dit Saint Joseph is a step up and another beautiful 2017 from this estate. Coming from the namesake vineyard of the appellation just south of Tournon, it reveals a dense purple color as well as a primordial bouquet of smoked black fruits, bacon fat, chocolate, crushed rocks, and graphite. This deep, medium to full-bodied, concentrated effort has ripe, polished tannins, a great mid-palate, and a blockbuster of a finish. It's as good as the 2015, it not even better! Give bottles another 2-3 years, count yourself lucky, and enjoy over the following 15+. Rating: 95+
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Wine & Spirits
This comes from the vineyard that gave St-Joseph its name, a south-facing parcel of granite in Tournon that grew a garnet-hued beauty in 2017. It’s appealing from the very first whiff, a mix of oak smoke and spicy black plum. While the oak notes from two years in barrels are prominent, the wine feels balanced, the meaty fruit absorbing their impact without losing any of its freshness. You could drink this now for the sexy opulence of its bacon-smoked flavors, but it’s structured to age for a decade or more.
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Wine Spectator
An extroverted style, with a rush of boldly ripe plum and blackberry compote flavors that are round and inviting in feel, laced with dark licorice and fruitcake and ending with an inlay of violet on the toasty finish. A buried iron note keeps it all honest. Best from 2021 through 2029.
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Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
The 2017 Saint-Joseph Lieu-Dit Saint-Joseph displays plenty of cedar and vanilla accents on the nose (it's aged in 100% new French oak) but backs those up with lush layers of mixed berries. Full-bodied and velvety, this is a rich, ripe Syrah that's presently hiding much of its granite terroir behind pillows of fruit and oak—but that sense of structure and proportion does shine through on the long, elegant finish. There's enough concentration and tannin to think at least a decade of aging potential is realistic.
The Guigal domain was founded in 1946 by Etienne Guigal in the ancient village of Ampuis, home of the wines of the Côte-Rôtie. In these vineyards that are over 2400 years old, you can still see the small terraced walls characteristic of the Roman period. Etienne Guigal arrived in this region in 1923 at the age of 14. He made wine for over 67 vintages and, at the beginning of his career, participated in the development of the Vidal-Fleury establishment.
Despite his young age, Marcel Guigal took over from his father in 1961 when the latter was victim to a brutal illness rendering him blind. Marcel's hard work and perseverance enabled the Guigals to buy out Vidal-Fleury in 1984, although the establishment retains its own identity and commercial autonomy. In 2000, the Guigals purchased the Jean-Louis Grippat estate in Saint-Joseph and Hermitage, as well as the Domaine de Vallouit in Côte-Rôtie, Hermitage, Saint-Joseph and Crozes-Hermitage.
In the cellars of the Guigal estate in Ampuis, the northern appellations of the Rhône Valley are produced and aged. These are the appellations of Côte-Rôtie, Condrieu, Hermitage, Saint-Joseph and Crozes-Hermitage. The great appellations of the Southern Rhône, Chateauneuf-du-Pape, Gigondas, Tavel and Côtes-du-Rhône, are also aged in the Ampuis cellars.
Marked by an unmistakable deep purple hue and savory aromatics, Syrah makes an intense, powerful and often age-worthy red. Native to the Northern Rhône, Syrah achieves its maximum potential in the steep village of Hermitage and plays an important component in the Red Rhône Blends of the south, adding color and structure to Grenache and Mourvèdre. Syrah is the most widely planted grape of Australia and is important in California and Washington. Sommelier Secret—Such a synergy these three create together, the Grenache, Syrah, Mourvedre trio often takes on the shorthand term, “GSM.”
Spanning the longest stretch of river in the northern Rhône—from Condrieu in the north, to Cornas in the south—the heart of St.-Joseph lies directly across the Rhône River from Hermitage. While its soils are basically the same as Hermitage: granite, supplemented by sand and gravel, its east facing slope receives less sunlight than Hermitage, which causes less overall berry ripening on its Syrah vines. However, some of the best of them can rival any fine expression of Hermitage, Cote-Rotie or Cornas with concentrated black fruits, dark spices, crushed rock and violets. A general advantage of the region is that its Syrahs typically don’t need as much time in the bottle compared to a Cote-Rotie or Hermitage and are much easier on the bank account!
A textbook St.-Joseph red is firm with a core of minerality that is enhanced by savory and peppery qualities. Aromas and flavors of smoke, olives, herbs, and violets are common; its wines are dense in red and black fruit.
St.-Joseph is also a source of fine northern Rhône white wine. Viognier, Marsanne and Roussanne grow well here and can be blended or made into single varietal wines. St.-Joseph whites are full and silky with citrus, pear and pineapple flavors and a rich bouquet reminiscent of honeysuckle, toasted nuts, spice and caramel.