'Julien Barrot: the young superstar'
- Jeb Dunnuck
Julien Barrot has burst onto the Chateauneuf scene in a big way. With sister Laetitia he runs a small, 12.5 hectare domaine that's been in his family for over three hundred years. For almost all of that time the family sold most of the fruit to big negociants but Julien had other ideas. The ancient vines - a third of them around a century old and the average age nearly seventy years - were there growing super quality fruit on the sandy soil to the south of the commune. Julien's job was to turn the raw material into vinous gold. To begin with he was hampered by the cramped cellar he had to work in but over the years and especially from 2012 he began to be recognised by his peers for wringing the full potential from those precious vineyards.
His 2016 Signature shows off both the old vines and the winemaking skill in equal measure. Working organically, he is after elegance over power; fresh, red fruit over prunes. The excitement in these wines is palpable and Barroche is a producer to follow. Barroche Signature is the Chateauneuf of the future.
As well as the Chateauneuf-du-Pape, they revel in a collaboration with a very old friend from Chateauneuf-de-Gadagne, 20km further south. Yannick Alliaud is a fifth generation grower there and some of his best terroirs - from a remote and unheralded part of the Rhone - contribute the fruit for Liberty. The inspirations for the wine are both friendship and a rebellious style of freedom exemplified by the statue on Ellis/Liberty Island to express themselves as well as their terroirs allow. It has the Barroche signature of fruit purity and is almost as elegant, utterly seamless. /CW
Offered subject to confirmation; available autumn 2018
