Domaine de la Pirolette - Saint-Amour Le Carjot 2018

Bettane & Desseauve

About the domain :

Grégory Barbet, son of former House Director Jean Loron, produced his first vintage in 2013. With 15 hectares perfectly situated around the estate, Grégory quickly understood the need to deal with the heterogeneity of a cru better known for its evocative name than for its hitherto confidential parcels. While his village cuvée is positioned in a reliable, structured style, his plot-based cuvées, Poulette and Carjot, are in the making. Indeed, while the use of wood has improved, it's the blending with concrete eggs that has really brought a more subtle balance to the woodiness, which is finding its rightness in 2018. In an appellation where references were lacking, here is a young estate to watch, as much for the rising quality of its wines as for the contagious passion that inhabits this young winemaker.

Guide Hachette des vins

About the wine:

Produced from 60-year-old vines planted in a 5-hectare plot known as Le Carjot, this cuvée delivers intense aromas of ripe fruit (blueberry, morello cherry), violets and sweet spices. On the palate, it's well-coated, dense and full-bodied, with fine tannins and a well-balanced touch of freshness.

Robert Parker - Wine Advocate

RVF - La Revue du Vin de France / Guide des Meilleurs Vins de France

About the wine:

The ageing - half in eggs, half in barrels - appears judicious. The nose, slightly marked by noble wood, quickly gives way to intense black fruit, cold coffee and chocolate sponge cake. The palate is very well constructed, with round fruit and a tannic framework, like a light claw, that gives structure, punctuated by a mineral and milky imprint. Good ageing potential.

About the domain :

A former cooperage sales executive, Virginie Barbet bought this estate in 2013 with her husband Grégory and a few investor friends. Depending on the cuvée, the grapes are either destemmed or pressed whole. But always with a "chapeau grillé" accompanied by pumping-over and délestage for gentle extraction. They then mature in French oak barrels and concrete eggs their various parcel-based cuvées, which are among the most distinctive terroirs of the cru. Today, they are one of the few domains to restore Saint-Amour's cru status.

Wine Enthusiast

About the wine:

This single parcel wine was partially aged in wood for 16 months. This added spice to the fragrant fruit and rich tannins, giving the wine plenty of cellaring potential. The finish shows the wine's youth, with licorice notes that soften as it matures. Drink from 2021.

James Suckling

About the wine:

An abundance of ripe black fruit (from cherry to blackberry to blueberry), but also generous, fine tannins on a creamy palate reminiscent of a good Pomerol! Then comes the characteristic acidity of Gamay on a compact, tannic finish that lifts the substantial whole with ease. To drink or to keep.

Tim Atkin