Domaine de Boisseyt Saint-Joseph Les Garipelées Blanc 2024

This white Saint-Joseph from Domaine de Boisseyt comes from a one-hectare plot located in the village of Chavanay, in the north of the appellation, on the right bank of the Rhône. The soil there is shallow granite, planted with Marsanne and Roussanne averaging 25 years of age. These slopes, typical of the northern Rhône, yield whites that are both fresh and generous.

The Marsanne and Roussanne are harvested and vinified separately. After pressing, light settling is carried out for 24 hours. The Marsanne is then vinified in a 10-hectolitre stoneware jar, while the Roussanne ferments in barrels that have already held two or three wines. Eight months of ageing precede blending and bottling.

This wine reveals notes of yellow peach, apricot, pear, white flowers, hawthorn, toasted almond, hazelnut and honey. Yellow-fleshed fruit combines with delicate floral notes, lifted by toasted nuts. The palate offers a fresh attack, then rounds out deliciously, before a long finish with fine bitterness.

The cradle of wine culture in Western Europe, France owes its first vines to the Greeks of Phocaea, who settled around Marseille some twenty-six centuries ago, before the Romans spread viticulture along the Rhône and the Garonne and as far as Champagne. In the Middle Ages, Cistercian and Benedictine monks cleared the slopes of Burgundy and patiently mapped out the climats, laying the foundations of the notion of terroir. The 19th century brought the glory of the classifications, then the disaster of phylloxera, which wiped out the vineyards before they were rebuilt on American rootstocks; the creation of the appellations d'origine contrôlée in the 1930s then set the rules that would inspire the whole world. Today, France vies every year with Italy and Spain for first place in world production by volume and remains the ultimate benchmark of the Old World, as much for its age-worthy wines as for its winemaking models. Vineyards cover almost the entire country, from the cool north of Champagne and Alsace to the Mediterranean shores of Languedoc and Provence, by way of the oceanic climates of Bordeaux, the Loire and the South-West, continental Burgundy, the steep slopes of the northern Rhône and the high-altitude valleys of Savoie and the Jura. This mosaic of soils – limestone, schist, gravel or rounded pebbles – explains the extraordinary diversity of styles. As for grape varieties, Cabernet Sauvignon and Merlot dominate Bordeaux and produce structured reds, Pinot Noir is the signature of Burgundian finesse, Syrah of the depth of the Rhône, while Grenache, Gamay, Cabernet Franc and Mourvèdre cover every register, from easy-drinking wines to wines for long ageing. Among the whites, Chardonnay, Sauvignon Blanc, Chenin, Riesling and Viognier offer expressions ranging from lively and mineral to unctuous, all the way to great sweet wines. A land of benchmarks and constant discoveries, France remains the compass for wine lovers the world over.