Tasting today’s Saint-Joseph was a transporting, transcendent experience, but it also got me feeling a little blue: Not being able to travel right now is really cramping my style, and this wine really drove that fact home—because it is exactly the kind of wine I hope to discover when traveling in places like the Northern Rhône.
Domaine de L’Iserand is a “local boy makes good” story and an important new destination for artisan-crafted Syrah in Saint-Joseph, whose best wines cede nothing qualitatively to their bigger-name cousins across the river in Hermitage. Legends like Raymond Trollat and Pierre Gonon already proved that, and Jean-François Malsert has confidently picked up the torch. Malsert used to run a natural wine bar in the town of Tournon—which looks across the Rhône River to Tain l’Hermitage and its hallowed hillside vineyards—and got the chance to join the ranks of the producers he revered when he acquired a tiny parcel of old Saint-Joseph vines from his grandfather. Following in the footsteps of like-minded local superstars like Hervé Souhaut, Malsert takes a resolutely natural approach to viticulture and winemaking, producing minuscule quantities of remarkably pure, fathoms deep, soil-driven Syrah. Today’s 2018 is the debut vintage of “Lou Taïssou,” a powerful evocation of the granitic slopes of Ozon, where most of Malsert’s vines are located. Putting your nose in a glass of this dark, brooding, meaty Syrah is an express train to the heart and soul of the northern Rhône. I would have loved to have discovered Domaine de L’Iserand, but I take solace in being able to share a few of the 200-ish cases of this wine that exist in the world. And it’s not the relative “newness” or insider cachet that sealed it for me—it’s the unadulterated, undeniable excellence of what’s in the bottle!
Jean-François, whose wine bar in Tournon was called Carafes en Folie, realized his dream of producing his own wine when he created Domaine de L’Iserand in 2011. After apprenticing in Australia, New Zealand, and France, he established his headquarters in Sécheras, which, like neighboring Ozon, is one of the “sweet spot” villages in the Saint-Joseph AOC: you can see the Hermitage hill across the river, and the steep sloping vineyards (which Jean-François must plow with the assistance of a winch) are on soils of decomposed granite. The Domaine de L’Iserand holdings have grown to 5.8 hectares, which Jean-François farms according to strict organic principles. Sulfur additions are kept to a bare minimum at every stage in the process; only native yeasts are used for fermentation; only used barrels are used for aging (when they’re used at all); and wines are bottled unfined and unfiltered. The goal is maximum transparency.
I mentioned Hervé Souhaut (Domaine Romaneaux-Destezet) above not just because he is said to have helped Jean-François find American importers but because there are some kindred qualities shared by the two producers’ wines. There’s a certain rawness they share—a vibrant, pulsing energy that drives the flavors and aromas. When first poured, you’ll notice this wine has a slight ‘prickle’ to it (from trapped CO2 left in solution as an alternative to adding sulfur) but it dissipates after some time in a decanter—at which point this blossoms into a dense, tangy, mineral-rich Syrah that wouldn’t be out of place next to Hermitage wines costing twice as much.
Although there are what look to be rabbit ears on the label “Lou Taïssou” is said to mean “badger” in Occitan dialect—an apparent nod to one of the grape-eating pests Jean-François contends with in his vineyards. Today’s 2018 was fermented using 60% whole grape clusters and aged in a combination of used
demi-muid (600L) barrels and plastic “flextanks,” creating a wine of profound soil character and gobs of dark, primary fruit. In the glass, it’s a deep, nearly opaque ruby with magenta highlights, with heady aromas of blackberry, mulberry, Morello cherry, violets, roasted meat cracked black pepper, grill char, tapenade, licorice, and freshly turned earth. If you are a ‘student’ of Northern Rhône Syrah, you couldn’t ask for a more textbook example, and as this wine takes on air (give it an hour in a decanter) it coalesces into a rather full-bodied wine. I could see myself mistaking it for Côte-Rôtie or Hermitage in a blind tasting, to be honest—it’s that good—and I’m going to predict 10-15 years of positive evolution for this bottle should you decide to cellar some. When it comes time to pull a cork, serve it at 60-65 degrees in large Burgundy stems and enjoy its savory, spicy, smoky flavors alongside a gamey, herb-slathered cut of lamb. This is going to knock your socks off—don’t miss it!
