Domaine Lionnet Saint-Joseph Rouge Terre Neuve 2022

This! Just, dreamy. Spicy, structured, and buzzing with minerality – we don’t get Saint-Joseph Rouge (100% Syrah) often, but when we do, and when it’s from a quaint, enduring, and passionate family domaine like this... we do whatever we must to acquire as much as possible.

Let’s talk about deep roots. A house that’s stood since 1575. Vines that have been tenderly farmed for upwards of 40 to 100 years. A family that remains committed to age-old ways and the stability of tradition at every turn. Domaine Lionnet is deeply rooted in every facet of their business, it turns out, and their staunchness shows in the immaculate wines they produce.

Today, the estate is run by Corinne Lionnet and her husband, Ludovic Izerable, a refugee from the Haute Savoie city of Grenoble. He sees manual vineyard work, long cuvaison and elevage, carefully selected vineyard sites, and old vines as the best means of expressing the truth of the land within their wines. With just over two hectares in Cornas and less than one hectare in Saint-Joseph, their holdings are decidedly unassuming – but it’s abundantly clear that their wines are anything but.

Their teeny plot in Saint-Joseph is in the southernmost village of Châteaubourg, not far from Cornas. Half the vines are younger, while the rest were planted in the 1950s – all on clay-limestone soils with large limestone galets. The grapes are vinified with the stems intact, aging for 15 months in used 600-liter oak before bottling without filtration. “Terre Neuve” (or “new land,” since Corinne and Ludovic more recently expanded their holdings to Saint-Joseph) offers up elegant notes of spiced plums, dusty summer blackberries, figs, dried violets, black peppercorn, and fennel, with silky-soft tannins and a lovely and refined texture. This is poised, punchy, pretty, mineral-laced Northern Rhône Syrah at its finest, from a producer who is a quietly adept master of their craft! For lovers of rare Rhône reds, I’d urge you to jump all over this ASAP. 

PAIRING IDEAS: A meal of rich black pepper beef stir fry will generously complement all those spiced, peppery elements of this lovely Syrah.