Saint Joseph Le Clos, Maison M. Chapoutier 2019

More elegant, the 2019 Saint Joseph Le Clos has an incredibly granite nose of cassis, leather, ground pepper, and powdered rock. Tasting like a Hermitage from Bessards, it’s medium to full-bodied, has remarkable purity, fine tannins, and a seamless mouthfeel. I suspect the acidity is quite low, but this has a great sense of freshness as well as length.

Dark, lively crimson. Gorgeous! Offers much more pleasure than the Hermitage Les Greffieux 2008. Sad that prices of this wine and the best St-Josephs generally have been edging up since about 2012. Drink 2021-2030

The 2019 Saint Joseph Le Clos comes from higher elevation granite soils and is just about always in the running for the Saint Joseph of the vintage. Reminding me of the Vieilles Vignes cuvée from the Gonon brothers, this dense purple-hued effort offers incredible blackberry and smoked currant-like fruits as well as notes of violets, crushed stone, incense, and leather. It's a rich, full-bodied, incredibly impressive red that's going to take 4-5 years to shed some baby fat and keep for two decades.