Eric Texier St. Julien-en-St.Alban

100% Syrah. From Texier’s younger (20-40-year-old) vines, planted on a south-facing slope on granite soils in the warm St-Julien-en-St-Alban zone (in the Ardèche on the northern bank of the Ouvèze–to the west of the Rhône River, at the southern edge of the northern Rhône Valley). They are organically farmed and harvested by hand. The vinification and aging are identical to Texier’s Brézème bottling and thus purely expressive of the much warmer, sunnier microclimate and granite-rich St. Julien terroir: whole-cluster fermentation with native yeasts in open concrete tanks with no sulfur and a 6-8-day maceration; no extraction techniques (only a submerged cap for gentle infusion of color and flavor); aging in concrete tanks on the fine lees for 18-24 months with no racking; bottling is without fining or filtration and with only a minute dose of sulfur.