Pierre Jean Villa St. Joseph Blanc 2021

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Producer	Pierre Jean Villa
Country	France
Region	Rhone
Subregion	St. Joseph
Varietal	Roussanne
Vintage	2021
Sku	28651
Size	750ml

 

A relatively new domaine founded in 2009, Pierre-Jean Villa has already established himself as one of the most gifted winegrowers of his generation in the northern Rhône. Unlike his peers, Pierre-Jean never inherited vines. After almost 10 years of working harvest and learning from prominent producers in Burgundy (Mommessin’s Clos de Tart), Villa returned to his home Rhone. After working with the Vins de Vienne trio (Rhone winemaking superstars - Yves Cuilleron, Pierre Gaillard and François Villard) for 5 years, Pierre-Jean decided to create his own domaine in Northern Rhone. Today his estate contains 17 hectares of major crus, and obtained organic certification in 2020. In the vineyard, he obsessively safeguards the life of the soil in order to produce wines that are faithful to their terroir. In the cellar, he accompanies the grapes with little interventionist vinification: indigenous yeasts, respect of the lunar calendar for racking and bottling work.

A lovely, dense 100% Roussanne from a parcel in the northern end of the appellation in Chavanay and three smaller ones in the southern end of the appellation. This is one of the few 100% Roussannes made in the north (only four or five producers make one, and indeed very few growers in the north are interested in Roussanne because it is, as Pierre Jean says, un aspirateur pour la maladie--a vacuum cleaner for illness--but he stubbornly sticks with it). The name—Angel’s Leap, or Swan Dive—comes from the parcel growing on a steep hillside that ends at a cliff above the winery. Production averages 1,500 bottles.