In pursuit of elegance, in two great terroirs
Exposed to all the vagaries of sun, hail and the fierce Mistral wind, the stony La Crau plateau is one of the most extreme locations in Chateauneuf-du-Pape. It is so high that it was once the site of a telegraph station ferrying messages between Paris and Marseille. But this unforgiving site also brings forth one of the region's most refined and elegant wines: Vieux Telegraphe.
The Brunier family have been making wine here since the 1890s, when a farsighted ancestor first laid out vineyards. In the generations since, they have accumulated a wealth of old vine stock, now averaging 70 years of age. Current winemaker Daniel Brunier likes to say that his two main goals are, first, to make a wine about terroir and vintage (and not about the cellar); and second, tannins as fine as possible. He has amply achieved both with his luxuriously silky 2021; the freshness and salinity that expresses through the structure and dark fruit evoke the first relatively cool vintage the area has seen in eight years.
La Crau is not the only great Southern Rhone terroir the Bruniers farm. Further east, in the shadow of a spectacularly jagged rockface called the Dentelles de Montmirail, the herb-scented vineyards of Gigondas enjoy high elevation and limestone-rich soils. The Bruniers work two old-vine sites here. Terrasse du Diable is the fuller, with dark and what Daniel calls 'bloody' fruit mixing with garrigue and herb notes. From even older vines, Racines is elegant and balanced, less full-bodied, but with impressive depth. Daniel calls it 'one of the finest Racines we have made'. /NT
Offered subject to remaining unsold; available Winter 2023
