There are vineyards, and then there are vineyards. Dan Keeling visits Saint-Joseph’s finest 

Sainted Love

There are vineyards, and then there are vineyards. Dan Keeling visits Saint-Joseph’s finest

After more than a few visits to vineyards, you’ll perhaps forgive me for finding many of them interchangeable. Yet more unfathomably old soils; yet more common trellising-systems; yet another moment of despair when cornered by a _vigneron_ who – jabbering away about ‘pruning structures’ – can’t read their audience. But every so often, I stand among the dust and the vines of a hillside like Saint-Joseph ‘Les Chalaix’, astonished by its herculean scale – and the bloodymindedness of Jean-Louis Chave, the force of nature who prised back its terraces from the forest – and I think: _This is_ glorious.

Seeing ‘Les Chalaix’ for the first time was, quite literally, breath-taking: the solar-powered monument to Syrah made me surrender my last lungful like a hapless goldfish that had accidentally leapt out of its tank. I don’t think Chave, who was standing next to me at the time, noticed. Nor did he seem to notice the amazement that later overwhelmed me as the magnitude of what he has achieved over the past couple of decades in the Northern Rhône Valley dawned. Because ‘Les Chalaix’ has ‘LEGACY’ written all over it. Politicians try to achieve it with influence; writers with words and song – with his restoration of 14ha of steep Saint-Joseph vineyards, abandoned since phylloxera in the 1860s, Chave has built a legacy that will last for centuries.

Jean-Louis Chave in Saint-Joseph ‘Les Chalaix’

Chave took over his family domaine and started renovating another of his Saint-Joseph sites, ‘Bachasson’ – once owned by his ancestors – in 1992. At first his father, Gérard, struggled to understand why his son didn’t just focus on Chave Hermitage. Besides the domaine’s fabulous rich white, red Chave Hermitage is a pure, long-lived Syrah that ranks among the world’s greatest wines; the autumnal splendour of classic vintages such as 1983 and 1990 have fuelled my own vinous infatuation. But Chave Jr isn’t one to sit back. With it near-impossible for him to buy more land on the Hermitage hill, it seemed obvious, however arduous, to reclaim the neighbouring homelands with which it has long had a symbiotic relationship – Saint-Joseph’s humble yin to Hermitage’s noble yang.

In 1999, Chave started piecing together ‘Les Chalaix’, buying ten plots from ten different owners. “‘Les Chalaix’ was a big construction project, like Hermitage was centuries ago,” says Chave. The similarities are obvious. Like Saar’s colossal Scharzhofberger, or Chablis’ tsunami of Grand Crus, these hills feel alive. Later in the day, we see men building terraces on the gigantic granite hillside next door to ‘Bachasson’. “I don’t know if they know how much work it is… yet,” says Chave.

If Hermitage is straightforward to define – a 137ha hill owned by the church and nobility, who offloaded it to peasants after phylloxera – sprawling Saint-Joseph is not so easy. Originally based around five valleys – ‘Les Chalaix’, ‘Bachasson’, ‘Sainte-Épine’, ‘La Dardouille’ and lieu-dit ‘Saint-Joseph’ itself – the appellation was established in 1956, stretching 30 miles along the right bank of the Rhône from Chavanay in the north to Châteaubourg in the south. As in many other regions with marginal climates, climate change has bolstered the ripening of grapes in Saint-Joseph. But the AOC’s rapid expansion of 30ha or more every year – doubling in size from 600ha to more than 1,400ha in 30 years – and its diverse terroirs and winemakers mean that as little as 5% of production, the vast majority of it red, is worth getting excited about.

Look closely though, and there are still many beautiful wines to be found. “We’ve big potential, and terroir every bit as good as Cornas and Côte-Rôtie. But people are planting in the wrong places – because it’s easier,” says Jean Gonon, our feet sinking into soft, decomposed gneiss as we walk through Sainte-Épine ‘Aubert’, very much one of the _right_ places. Bought from legendary retired _vigneron_ Raymond Trollat, it is home to 100-year-old vines, the fruit of which Gonon occasionally bottles as a rare ‘Vieilles Vignes’ cuvée (which, even if you can find it, commands a billionaire’s premium), but it more frequently makes up the spine of his benchmark standard Saint-Joseph: one of the best-value artisanal French reds of the past decade.

Jean and his brother Pierre took over Domaine Pierre Gonon from their father, Pierre Sr, in 1988, and have gradually elevated it from a provider of simple house wines to bistros around Mauves – where Chave is also based – to a producer of fine-scented gems beloved of sommeliers from Paris to New York. I love the graceful textures and explosive aromatics of Gonon reds, savourous blends of decaying woodland, violets and game that, more than any wines I know, recall blustery autumn days, and can only originate in the Northern Rhône. These weathered fiftysomething brothers are true vignerons – as all who farm Saint-Joseph, where everything must be done by hand, need to be. Unlike flatter nearby Crozes-Hermitage, where one person can farm an estimated 15ha of vines using machinery and irrigation, here it takes one person to farm every hectare.

Since his retirement, Raymond Trollat has ascended to saint-like status with wine lovers, and still lives in his modest house next to ‘Aubert’. An even greater loss to the AOC came when Jean-Louis Grippat, its godfather, sold his domaine to commercial producer Guigal in 2001. From a bloodline of growers, Grippat’s father had died young, leaving the family to sell grapes to the _négociant_ Chapoutier. But two weeks before the poor harvest of 1963, Chapoutier declined their crop, leaving the Grippats facing disaster. Fortunately, Jaboulet – producer of the legendary Hermitage ‘La Chapelle’ – stepped in, offering advice and barrels, and so Grippat started making his own wines. More progressive than the untechnological Trollat, Grippat also owned the appellation’s best vineyards, ‘Vignes de l’Hospice’ and _lieu dit_ ‘Saint-Joseph’ – Grand Crus in all but name. His sublime 1991 – a wine I’d happily dab behind my ears and never wash again – is my favourite ever Saint-Joseph and could go nose-to-nose with top Côte-Rôtie or Hermitage.

Today Grippat is often seen riding his bike around the vineyards. He also offers support to his nephew Julien Cécillon and his American wife Nancy Kerschen, makers of the supple, spicy ‘Babylone’ at Domaine Julien Cécillon. “I never liked the heavy style of local wines that were around when I was growing up in Saint-Joseph,” says Cécillon. “We called them ‘three hand wines’ – one hand to hold the glass and two to hold the table.” Part of a generation for whom organic farming is non-negotiable – others include La Ferme Des Sept Lunes, Hervé Souhaut and Monier Perréol – the couple started their domaine from scratch and will soon expand their 1ha of Saint-Joseph holdings on ‘Sainte-Épine’. “The last time we planted a vineyard, Jean-Louis Chave came to help us plan where to put the rows,” says Julien. “He looked around and said, ‘Easy, this’ll take two minutes.’”

  

Chave is the man to help sow the new seeds of Saint-Joseph AOC, of course, but when he tells me that he doesn’t know if he believes in Saint-Joseph as an appellation, he only knows that he believes in specific places, it’s clear what he means. His 2.8ha monopole ‘Clos Florentin’ is the last vineyard I visit – although at first, I’m not sure I believe in this ‘specific place’. The Northern Rhône is nicknamed ‘Chemical Valley’ because of the abundance of heavy industry built here after the war. It’s a contrast I had first encountered at AOC Château Grillet, one of the region’s most bucolic settings, were it not for the factory billowing smoke on the other side of the Rhône. So when, from high up on ‘Les Chalaix’, Chave points out some insignificant-looking flatlands next to an industrial unit in the far distance, I wonder if I’m missing something.

How wrong could I be? The undulating ‘Clos Florentin’ is an idyllic garden-paradise, with centenarian vines, flowers, wildlife, ponds – and even its own Belle Époque-era folly and amphitheatre. Bought fully formed from the long-organic Le Clos d’Arbalestrier in 2009, it’s the beginning of what Chave hopes will be several single vineyard bottlings. ‘Clos Florentin’ 2016 is a celebration of a relentless, overachieving spirit, combining generosity with finesse, as great wines do. “I want to give back to history, what history gave to me,” says Chave, as we sit in the shade of a tree and drink in the surroundings. “It’s all been possible because of Hermitage.”

1\. 2016 Jean-Louis Chave Saint-Joseph ‘Clos Florentin’

2\. 2018 Pierre Gonon Saint-Joseph

3\. 1991 Jean-Louis Grippat Saint-Joseph

4\. 2006 Pierre Gonon Saint-Joseph ‘Vieilles Vignes’

5\. 1996 Raymond Trollat Saint-Joseph

6\. 2019 Julien Cécillon Saint-Joseph ‘Babylone’

7\. 2017 La Ferme des Sept Lunes Premier Quartier

8\. 2019 Romaneaux-Destezet (Hervé Souhaut) Saint-Joseph ‘Sainte-Épine’

9\. 2016 Monier Perréol Saint-Joseph

10\. 2020 Laurent Habrard Saint-Joseph

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