Domaine Graillot Crozes-Hermitage red 2022

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Domaine Graillot Crozes-Hermitage red 2022

RVF Guide to the Best Wines of France 2025 (Sept. 2024) : 93/100. The Crozes is a reliable bottle that shows a bit closed upon opening and requires air to release its fruity side and beautiful spice notes. A wine that is not quite ready yet, but very promising.

The 2022 vintage :
Last year we emphasized the difference between 2020 and 2021, so what to say for this year; 2022 is very similar to 2020 but more extreme in drought (less than 180mm between January and October) and temperature. Our intuition that 2020 seemed to set the tone for what our future vintages would be like with climate change is thus confirmed.
We like to say that 2022 is dry like 2020 and hot like 2018; we were waiting to see which of these vintages we would lean towards the most. It is known that Syrah is very sensitive to drought, and this vintage is proof of that. The heat should have exposed us to overripeness, but the dryness led us instead to maturity blocks both technological and phenolic.
Balances have been maintained, and the blocks and levels of dryness in the vegetative parts like the stems have led us to very "digestible" degrees (12%), another completely counterintuitive fact.
The wines will surely need more time to develop, but their aging will allow us to taste them in 15 years with great pleasure.
Maxime and Antoine GRAILLOT

Technical sheet written by the domaine :

Appellation : Crozes-Hermitage

Grapes : 100% Syrah

Terroirs : Alluvium from the Rhône and Isère with sands, very little soil, and lots of round pebbles

Harvest : Manual

Viticulture : Traditional but focused on low yields, short pruning, and light fertilization, no herbicides, soils exclusively worked with a plow

Vinification : Long macerations (15 to 21 days) but always preceded by a more or less long cold maceration

Aging : In 225-liter barrels, low percentage of new wood (10%)