The endlessly charming wines of Antoine & Laurence Joly at La Roche Buissière in the southern Rhone have finally returned to us after far too long without them. Among the first growers we ever started working with, their wines are a joy to drink.
Northeast of Vaison-La-Romaine, Antoine and Laurence work 18 hectares of traditional varieties. Converted to organics by Antoine's father in the 80's, he handed over the reigns in 1999. For over twenty years the couple have been a shining example of the freshness available in the Rhone with careful work in the vines and a light hand in the cellar.
Diligently organic from the outset, the pair more recently began working in a style much closer to that of regenerative agriculture. In efforts to retain trademark freshness in a warming climate, they studied closely, sowed cover crops, and stopped working the soil. Laurence was astonished to see the results in 2022 - an otherwise suffocatingly hot vintage: "despite the dryness, the ground was still damp, the leaves were still green, the grapes were very healthy, the wines are energetic!"
Work in the cellar has always been as gentle as possible: macerating lightly, aiming for very little extraction, never punching down fermentations, and opting to raise the wines in concrete. Of the six cuvees available, each is produced as a distinct personality, the decision of which parcels are destined for which wine changing each year depending on taste at harvest.
From the lightest cuvées assembled of mostly free run juice, up to more serious macerations of their oldest vines, each is a testament to their vision, care and skill.
Available now, we have the following wines from their bountiful 2021 vintage, and the sun-kissed 2020.
AVAILABLE NOW
NEW 2020 - Petite Jeanne - Syrah, Grenache
"Jeanne is the lightest of the family, always a very short maceration, the free-run juice is bled twice at 24 hour intervals, and on the third day it's pressed gently. What we're looking for with Jeanne is something that's super fresh, very easy, almost like a rosé with more structure."
NEW 2021 - Petite Jeanne - Cinsault, Syrah, Grenache
NEW 2021 - Premices - Grenache, Syrah
"Next is Premices, except it's a six day maceration, with the free-run bled at 48 hour intervals and pressed on the final day. A touch more structure, whilst keeping very light."
NEW 2020 - Flonflons - Grenache, Syrah
"Flonflons is the first of the Cotes du Rhone cuvées, so this is macerated for about 9 days, but as always we are always looking for freshness, so we don't interfere with the maceration at all, no mechanical extraction. Flonflons is picked from parcels that are about 25-30 years old."
NEW 2021 - Petit Jo - Grenache, Syrah
"Petit Jo has a slightly longer maceration, more like 12 days, the same very low extraction. We joke because Petit Jo is nearly everyone's favourite, but its assembled from the leftovers! When we're tasting fruit in the parcels we know 'Oh this is a Jeanne, this is a Flonflons' and if we're not sure'... okay: Petit Jo!' But it always works. It's such a good all-rounder."
NEW 2019 - Le Claux - Grenache, Syrah
"Le Claux is one of the ones that's always the same parcel, 70 year old Grenache at our highest elevation, 350m. We get a real natural freshness up there, so we do our best to work with that, and retain it. A long soft maceration over two weeks, pressed to concrete for two years ageing. There's 10% Syrah from the same beautiful parcel."
NEW 2020 - Gaia - Syrah, Grenache
"And Gaia is a little like the reverse of Le Claux: Syrah from the same parcel, except 30 years old, and 10% Grenache. A two week maceration, raised in concrete for a year, it's very velvety - beautiful tannins."
