Pierre Gaillard, Saint-Joseph 2023

This gorgeous and generous wine is made by one of the great winemakers living in the Rhône Valley today.

A nose that is full of red berries and notes of spiced brioche, the palate is broad, generous and focussed with supple tannins and a superb balance, giving flavours of cherry, blackberry and liquorice with notes of nutmeg, cinnamon and crushed violet petals. A culinary gift, this is just perfect with lamb in any one of its traditional guises, but is also a delight with duck and even nothing at all...

If you like the idea of really very fine Syrah from, say, Hermitage or Côte Rôtie but balk at the prices, then Saint-Joseph is for you. If you only want to buy one really, really good bottle of French red over and over again, then, once more, this is certainly for you. It's even from a very famous village itself. Pierre's vines are grown on granite soils in the northern part of the appellation, close to his home in the village of Malleval.

There are three champion wine-makers based in the Rhône that have a didactic or pedagogic thread between them: Cuilleron, who learned from Villard, who learned from Gaillard. They all now work on their own Domaines, while also working together on the wonderful Vins de Viennes project. Maybe we'll get some of that one day as well... But staying with Gaillard, you can find incredible wines from across the northern Rhône with his name in them and each will give far more in terms of quality than you'd expect at the price point. 

This wine is made from the best selection of vines on the hills next to the most famed sites in the Rhône, and they are a selection found only on shallow, sandy, granitic soils that are so special to the appellation of Saint-Joseph, a long thin region based aroung the village of the same name on the western banks of the Rhône itself. This base provides a superb platform for the grapes to ripen with minimal intervention from the vineyard team, who, in truth, only fertilise when necessary with organic fertilisers and don't even spray with insecticides. The result is this wonderfully complex, rich and pure wine made y law from only Syrah grapes that are then treated like royalty (in the positive sense). Hand-harvested, these are fermented slowly for up to three weeks in open-top fermenters before being transferred to barriques where malolactic fermentation takes place during its 18-month ageing, providing the wine with some oak flavour, but, better still, balance, complexity and space for the delivery of its charming characteristics. A very special wine with totally integrated, ripe and yielding tannins - perfect for drinking now and for up to a decade.

I first met Pierre in a wine fair in Germany (that's me in the photo looking very happy next to Pierre - I'm on tiptoes...) after I had started working with one of his projects that aimed to highlight the wines from even further north of Côte Rôtie into the hinterland of the Seyssuel. He is a big chap and has very large, strong and powerful hands. But what bowled me over was just how gentle, kind and patient this man was, and how this was totally reflected in his wines. They are elegant and refined and perfumed and attractive - all over-delivering at their price-point, which in truth is just an added bonus. I met him again just as the harvest was beginning in 2025 and he was the same gentle giant, only this time in his home (that's us tasting together in his "office"), I met two of his children - Pierre-Antoine, who had just come in from harvesting in Condrieu; and Jeanne, who has begun growing and vinifying her own vines in the last ten years. They share the same humility and obsessive-like quest to understand the soils of their regions that their father has, adding a new layer to this captivating story, a beautiful part of the fabric of this incredible appellation.

2023 presented a number of climate-related challenges in Europe, the Rhône included. A very dry winter, heavy spring rains and a colossal heat-wave in the summer. These factors meant that winemakers had to adapt and react constantly in order to protect the vines and grapes. However, they're not attending their prèmiere rodeo and the quality of grapes was outstanding, largely helped by a dry and warm (if very quick) harvest. Places like Côte Rôtie that are higher in altitude were able to benefit from a wide diurnal range, keeping colour and acidity, sugars and size all in balance in each of the bunches of grapes. It was at times a wild vintage, but there is good volume of wine and the quality is very fine indeed.

Philippe Pellaton, President of Inter Rhône, notes: “Weather conditions were more chaotic in the North than in the South of the Rhône Valley, leading to a shorter harvest. That being said, both quality and quantity are there, throughout the region. The 2023 vintage for the wines of AOC Côtes du Rhône and the Rhône Valley Vineyards appears to be a great vintage for blending: full, dense, balanced and with lovely acidity levels.”