Domaine de la Pirolette - Saint-Amour Le Carjot 2019

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.

Robert Parker - Wine Advocate

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

About the wine:

In a powerful style for the vintage, we enjoy fresh black fruit, a few woody notes that accompany a flowery bouquet and a palate that's both athletic without excess, punctuated by a saline, dynamic finish.

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:

The structure is promising. With its blackberries and layers of tannins, the wine is ready to drink. There's a touch of spice on the finish, due to the wood ageing.

James Suckling

About the wine:

Highly concentrated blackcurrant, blueberry and black cherry combine with delicate notes of damp earth and extraordinary freshness for an alcohol content of 14.5%. Breathtaking minerality emerges on the very long finish.