The Black Collection

In the long, storied history of Margaux, the entry of Château Grand Tayac, headed by Corinne Roses, is a recent chapter. The vineyards of this humble estate run along the Garonne River, near the famed Château Lascombes and the revered Château Palmer.

The soils here are special, largely made up of distinctive gravel “croupes,” which act as a kind of radiator for the vines, holding in the heat of the day’s sun throughout the cooler nights – an ideal situation for Cabernet Sauvignon grapes.

In the vineyard, Corinne is fully organic, employing the use of wild grasses and cover crops, organic manure, while encouraging biodiversity. The Roses Family has been in Bordeaux for more than three generations, and Corinne has enlisted the help of one of the region’s most famous winemakers. Eric Boissenot has made wine for five of the six “first growth” Bordeaux houses, and one can taste that pedigree in this elegant Margaux. More expressive and less oaky than the typical wines from these famously rugged soils, Boissenot’s philosophy of terroir above all else is clear from first whiff of this esteemed, historic wine.

While 2020 may not be an historically “classic” vintage in Margaux, the conditions in this year were ideal for the rendering of a fresher, lower alcohol cuvée. With a warm, largely frost-free winter, and an exceptionally warm Spring, the vines came alive in these stony soils three weeks earlier than usual. A hot summer with higher than usual precipitation encouraged faster vine maturation while maintaining lower potential alcohol. Although there were some worrying storms just before the usual harvest of the Cabernet Sauvignon, Corrine Roses and Boissenot moved to pick their grapes a bit early, yielding a wine of great power and uncommon freshness. This may be the only Margaux vintage that will qualify for Dry Farm Wines.

Before winemaking can take place, healthy grapes must be brought into the winery. At Château Grand Tayac, Corrine Roses employs the same harvest team year after year, dutifully trained to make many passes through the vineyard, ensuring that only ripe grapes are picked. Before any grape goes into the tanks, Corinne herself inspects every berry, discarding any with cracks to become natural fertilizer.

Once the grapes are harvested, Eric Boissenot uses a technique known as a “cold soak,” letting the grape skins sit with their juice for a long period at low temperatures, encouraging them to develop fruitier, more expressive esters, while minimizing bitter tannins. All of the vineyard parcels are fermented together in stainless steel tanks before the wines are slotted into barrels specially coopered for Grand Tayac.

The story of the Domaine de la Ville Rouge, and the family at its center begins in earnest in 1919 when Paul Girard dug into the rolled pebble soils of the Northern Rhône’s left bank to plant Syrah grapes. Now, Paul’s great-grandson Sébastien, tends a handful of these same vines, mostly looking after the gnarled Syrah his grandfather planted some forty years ago. Dedicated wholly to the expression of this highly unique terroir, as soon as the current generation began farming here in 2006, the conversion to organic farming began, and now, the Domaine farms within the lunar cycle, certified Biodynamic.

A sportsman, before steering the Ville Rouge winery in a new direction, Sebastien was a champion white water kayaker, and still takes his two eldest sons on adventures on some of the most harrowing rivers in France.A native to the heart of the Rhône valley, there is a certain rugged masculinity to the reds from the Domaine, filled with flavors of earth, and even game, they also have a surprising amount of fruity charm to spare.

The high terraces that house the grapes that go into the “Terre d’Éclat,” or “Land of Radiance,” are peppered with large pebbles from path of the ancient Rhône river. With an Eastern exposition, the pebbles absorb the heat of the morning sun, and act as little radiators throughout the day, bringing the grapes to ripeness, while also maintaining plenty of acidity.

2021 was hardly a typical vintage in the Northern Rhône, but one that may have been especially well-suited for fresher wines, with more evolved aromas. The greatest threat to the crop was a late frost that mostly claimed more low lying vineyards, while the growing season was not the hot, dry, sun-baked affair that vignerons in the land of Syrah have come to expect. Instead, humid days, and freckles of rainfall through the summer tempered the sun’s usual fury here, leading to a smaller harvest (about five percent below the ten-year average), with less alcohol.

Grapes are hand-harvested, and 100% destemmed before undergoing a four and half day cold-soak before fermentation to boost aromatics, and ready the wine for a native fermentation. Regular pigeage (punchdowns), and pump-overs are used for a medium level of extraction, and the fermentation is ended after a hot maceration, after which the wine is left to age for 12 months in used oak barrels.