Domaine de la Ville Rouge

We’re always on the lookout for this. Historically, some of the very best vineyards are tended by growers who don’t bottle their wine. This fruit carries a heavy premium and ends up in the hands of the top bottlers, houses like Guigal and Chapoutier in the Rhone. Just a splash of the juice from these secret sources can completely transform otherwise ordinary cuvees.

From time to time, an unusually talented son returns from enology school and convinces his parents that it’s time for the family to bottle its own. In our experience, this often signals the birth of a “new” great estate. It’s in the very first releases from such estates that we discover unbelievable value. As the wines have no track record, prices are generally subdued. That’s what we discovered this winter when one of the top sommeliers in the region pointed us to Ville Rouge and the Girard family’s prized Syrah holdings on the galets roules of Mercurol.

The wines of Crozes-Hermitage are far from equal. The best comes from an area called the Chassis plain, at the southern end of the appellation. This is where you find the stellar Syrahs of Alain Graillot and Laurent Combier’s incomparable Clos des Grives. It’s also where we discovered Ville Rouge. The landscape is packed with stones; the soil granitic and sandy. The wines? More Hermitage than Crozes — fabulously rich with wild berry flavors that are both explosive in youth and built to age.

In 2005, young Sebastien Girard came home after a stint with the Courbis brothers in St. Joseph. His parents pulled the trigger, and, in 2006, the family hand-selected 20% of their production and bottled a few hundred cases of wine. It didn’t take long for their bottles to raise eyebrows with the French press and the top sommeliers in the region. The 2006 was superb, but this 2007 is something else altogether. In this spectacular vintage that combines concentration and fabulously chiseled structure, Sebastien has come out with a wine that announces the Girards’ arrival at the pinnacle of Crozes.

Tasting Notes from the WineAccess Travel Log

“Deep ruby color to the edge. Pure red fruit nose, with wild, red fruit flavors. The wine is both hedonistic and serious, begging for more time in bottle to show off its underlying complexities. A superb 2007, combining both the perfectly honed, pristine red fruit flavors of northern Rhone Syrah with excellent structure. Drink now for its gorgeous primary fruit flavors or age for up to seven years.”