2016 Martine Rouchier St. Joseph Chave & Luc bottlings

2016 Rouchier st. Joseph Chave and Luc. No sulfur/biodynamic, “natural” small production st. Joseph. ⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀
In the past couple of weeks I’ve gotten multiple messages asking me if I’ve had this producer (I have not) and what I’ve thought. Finally this week my friend Elliot Wang @ Everson Royce asked because he ordered some for the shop. The store is about 4 blocks from my office so I figured, why don’t we pop them and see how they are? Suffice to say… Everson Royce does not have anymore in stock after today . I believe a few other spots in southern California have received it based on what I’ve seen on Instagram. Both wines are under $40/btl
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I will preface my notes by saying that my initial impressions of the wine were not strong. They seemed overly natty with that sweet juicy fruit and not st Joseph/Syrah like at all. But they significantly developed over time into compelling wines.

• 2016 Martine Rouchier St. Joseph La Chave - France, Rhône, Northern Rhône, St. Joseph (1/31/2019)
  Natty wine - no sulfur. Hitting the streets of SoCal this week so thought I’d take it for a spin since I love 2016 N Rhone.

This wine has a strong tannic grip but broad deep strokes of sweet dark red berry fruit with a hint of that natural grapiness on the finish that clears away after a hour. Long extract that really sinks into the finish. Initially it was a bit too “natural” to me with that grapiness and sweet twinge but with a hour of air it really morphed into a really delicious St Joseph that seems to have the body to get some years in it. The fruit balances out and the clean acid of 2016 shines. Really enjoyed the wine, we had a number of other wines open and I just kept subconsciously going back to this and repouring

I had intended to taste it blind with 16 gonon st joe, iles, faury vv and the regular faury but our group of six at Everson Royce ended up just being 3 of us. But just from the top of my head, it has more structure than the faury bottlings, not nearly as fleshy as the regular faury (which is ripe and bold). It doesn’t reach the level of the gonon st joe but its a little step up from the iles, which is good since this wine is under $40/btl.

• 2016 Martine Rouchier St. Joseph Luc - France, Rhône, Northern Rhône, St. Joseph (1/31/2019)
  Started out super natty. Really grapey, fleshy, soft , light bodied and fruity on the palate. I kinda let it sit by the wayside as I was very much enjoying the Chave bottling of the domaine.

After about 1.5 hours I went back to the wine and it developed this meaty, smoky, dark fruited dusted tannic grip on it and that ultra fruity profile went away. It still didn’t have the depth of the Chave but it was still delicious in its own way.

Nice to see your notes. I was just eyeing some 2015s online. Now I might have to go get them.

John Livingston seemed pretty down on the 15s (seems to be down on this producer in generally, but more so the 15s). Can’t verify how the 15s are. Never know with them natty wines!

Charlie, can you explain what “natty” means?

Mark- Natural wines. As he said in the opening: No sulfur/biodynamic, “natural” small production st. Joseph

Fu- Thanks for the notes. I was on the fence on grabbing these from Lyle, and you may taken me over the fence

Flawed

I wondered what ‘natty’ meant as well. I was thinking ‘mousy’ or some such crap in the wine.

Ah! Natural=Natty. I dread that we find monikers for words that are fine in their original form.

natty is a more negative connotation for the term natural wine. I think most of us when we say “that wine is showing natty” it’s not a good thing. It’s not merely a shortening of the term. So Marcus/Adrian are mostly correct.

But in this particular case, the 2016s are fine examples of good wine made in the “natural” style.

Thanks a lot for this - will look out for these two. Regarding the wines coming off “natty” at first but improving with air - do you find this to be common? I think something like Dard & Ribo is most definitely natty but I don’t have enough experience to know how much they could develop after opening. Usually the glou-glou factor is so high that the bottle gets emptied very quickly, even if that is by no means my preferred style.

I’ve had it three ways, I think it really depends on the wine. The more structured N. Rhones that are syrah based seem to do this, where they start off grapey and soft and then pick up structure and firm up with air. Recent examples would be Ooka Cornas, multiple JM Stephan and then this Rouchier.

Of course the ones that turn super natty and mousy with air as well. Then finally the ones that just stay juicy and grapey throughout.

We had this provence field blend of maybe 8 different grapes yesterday as well. Super juicy, bright, fruity with some bubbly aspect and it kinda just stayed the same the whole evening.

Hey FuBar, is that a GG gold on the left and a Zalto on the right?

Yea.

I have a wine glass bag with two Zalto Bordeaux and one ggg that I have in my trunk.

When I took out the bag yesterday … and I heard the jingle of broken glass. One zalto Bordeaux broke. Sigh.

So yea. Mismatched glasses

I dig these wines. Here’s a couple notes:

12/15/2018
Yup, that’s Saint-Joseph. Very good wine, lighter-bodied and full-flavored as the '16s all seem to be. Juicy and fresh, nice touch of richness on the finish. There’s nothing here to suggest one ought to choose this over, say, Faury, but it’s just fine as is.

12/17/2018
A second bottle, day 2: I’m going to walk back my previous note as this is now showing much darker, deeper and meatier, with high-toned and peppery whole cluster notes that remind me of Gonon. Inky dark fruit powers through the finish. Damn enjoyable.

Just tryin’ to marry natty with dread. Looks like I failed!

Thanks for the insight, have to give Ooka a try. I recently acquired a few bottles from a new Cornas grower called Cyril Courvoisier - the first vintage (2017) is labeled Vin de Table instead of Cornas and having tasted it quickly it seemed uncommonly fruity and soft for a Syrah from Cornas although with very pretty dark fruit. Will be interesting to see whether it develops any structural typicity with some time sideways. Some people in France certainly seem to have faith in the man behind the wines.

Ooh, new Cornas producer! From Cyril Courvoisier’s website, it says that his 2017 Vin de France is made from a lieu-dit in Cornas called Les Côtes that achieved AOC Cornas status in 2018: http://www.domainecyrilcourvoisier.com/les-flacons-1

His wines otherwise do not seem to be “natural,” i.e. no carbonic maceration, etc., just whole-cluster fermentation and light sulfur for the reds: http://docs.wixstatic.com/ugd/dd87c1_250116b4c37245e19044c6ecf84e0b3d.pdf

Ah but wait! JLL says he does use carbonic fermentation:

100% Syrah (2015) 67% from 0.3 hectare on E facing gore, granite soils on Les Côtes at Cornas, 33% from E/N-E facing loess soils, vinification starts with 1-2 harvest boxes in vat 4 days, rest of crop into 10 hl steel vat, 4-5 days macération carbonique, then 20 day whole bunch vinification, wild yeasts, 1-2 cap punchings a day, press wine added, aged 4-6 year 300-litre, some 228-litre oak casks 8 months, unfiltered, will be Cornas from the 2018 vintage, organic wine, 1,400-1,600 b

Well I would say it was more fruity and soft than “natty” but that said I’m not surprised to learn about the carbonic maceration. Nevertheless I look forward to following the development and more than anything I cannot wait to try his Chaillot once it comes out.

Please use your words, “natty” has no meaning

Do you mean feral? bretty? something else? Vincent Paris wines can be “grapey” but aren’t natural.

You’re too old to be drinking these type of wines.