2017 Pierre Jean Villa Côte-Rôtie ‘Fongeant’

100% organic Syrah. Fongeant is a lieu-dit at the very top of the Côte Brune hillside. This fruit comes from a parcel of just over an acre of sélection massale vines planted in 1954 and 1964, and since 2013 Pierre Jean has plowed this vineyard with a horse. Depending on the year, the wine is made with between two-thirds and 100% whole cluster after a strict triage and is not fined or filtered. Aged in a mix of 228L barrels and 500L demi-muids for 24 months. Only 10% new oak. 400 six-packs made. Pierre Jean Villa is considered one of the finest growers and producers in the northern Rhône, but very little of the wines make it to the states. This is a young wine that will need some serious decanting or another 5-15 years in the cellar to show its best, but it is already intoxicatingly aromatic, with pencil shaving, dried tobacco leaves, strawberry and blackberry, licorice and meaty notes. Concentrated and intense. 

"Employing modern, meticulous viticulture practices, Villa, now joined by his children Pauline and Hugo, crafts some of the region’s finest wines."  –Yohan Castaing, The Wine Advocate, February 2025