Crozes-Hermitage and Saint-Joseph from Domaine Stéphane Rousset 2022/2023!
3/15/2025
Pictured above: Crozes-Hermitage "Les Picaudières." This steep, terraced vineyard produces wines rivaling Hermitage. We've just received our last shipment of the 2022, which will cellar beautifully for 20 years...
We're proud to again offer Crozes-Hermitage and Saint-Joseph from Domaine Stéphane Rousset! The Rousset family goes back eleven generations in Erome - Stéphane's great uncle was the legendary Raymond Roure, from whom the Roussets purchased the "Picaudières" vineyard in Gervans, and his father Robert, while officially retired, still helps out. The vineyards, mostly in Gervans and Erôme in the northern sector of Crozes, produce wines from granite hillsides, similar to Hermitage in stye and quality. The Rousset Saint-Joseph comes from "Les Rivoires" in Tournon, a superb granite terroir producing classic age-worthy wines.
2022 is a particularly great vintage for Domaine Rousset, and especially for the superb "Les Picaudieres." This isolated steep vineyard of granite terraces, is a carbon copy of the Hermitage hill a few miles to the south, isolated in a forest, protected from north winds. The wine it produces ages beautifully, becoming the magical Syrah that we love from the region's most traditional estates. The 2022 was harvested late as "the phenolic ripening took time due to the impact of the drought on the granite," said Stéphane - the resulting wine, at 13% alcohol is deep and complex but with a lovely freshness. It's a superb and classic Northern Rhone Syrah. (We opened a 2019 a few weeks ago - a superb wine that needs another 10 years, but perhaps lacking the beautiful freshness of the 2022!)
Looking south from the top of "Les Picaudières," Hermitage on the left, Tournon across the river
The Crozes-Hermitage Rouge is excellent as well in 2022. Coming from granite and limestone hillside vineyards, the 2022 is dense, complex and ripe, with freshness and finesse - more forward than the "Picaudieres" for early drinking, it will repay aging for 5 to 15 years. The 2023 Rousset Saint-Joseph is a serious example from great terroir, ½ hectare on granite in Tournon, that is often overlooked, but any lover of good Saint-Joseph should try this wine - certainly comparable to the Gonon "Les Iles Feray." It's a bit softer and more ready than the 2022, with gorgeous fruit - enjoy until 2035+
The estates white wines are beautifully ripe, complex and elegant with stone and exotic fruits, citrus and minerals on the palate. The 2023 "Marsanne Vieilles Vignes" is from 60 to 90 year-old vines on sandy granite hillsides; The 2023 Crozes-Hermitage Blanc adds 15% Roussanne - it's wonderfully ripe and stylish, for drinking over the next 5 years.
For those seeking traditional wines of terroir in the Northern Rhone, these are fine examples and great values - we thank the Rousset family for their fine work on these steep hillsides, and in the cellar. For drinking now in their youthful intensity or for enjoying after ten to twenty years of aging, these are profound wines that we heartily recommend!
And we've added our two favorite Northern Rhone values, from Domaine des Amphores in Saint-Joseph and Dumien-Serrette in Cornas, and a few wines from our friends in Mauves. (Sorry, just one bottle each per person from Domaine Pierre Gonon)
