Chateau Grillet Cotes du Rhone Blanc 2020

Young vigneronne and ex-Domaine d'Eugénie winemaker Jae Chu Cramette is now treading the floorboards at one of France’s most historic and enigmatic vineyards. Judging by her first two vintages in charge, Cramette is living out the rule that if you are good enough, you are old enough. In just her second vintage in charge at Château-Grillet, Cramatte received a perfect score from France’s leading wine guide, a tribute not just to her talents but also to the work of her predecessor, Alessandro Noli, and the many who laid the groundwork.
 
That Château-Grillet’s Lazarus-like return to the top of France’s wine hierarchy has happened faster than many expected will be no surprise to anyone who knows François Pinault and his driven technical director, Frédéric Engerer. Pinault’s Artémis Domaines is the current owner of Château Latour and Clos de Tart, and has previously revitalised some of France’s most historically important terroirs, even if Grillet needed more TLC than others.
 
Led by Alessandro Noli, the new regime immediately set about pushing this legendary terroir to its full potential. Organic and biodynamic farming led the way in revitalising the health of Grillet’s rocky, schist-dominated soils. At the same time, the 3.5-hectare vineyard was reorganised into 102 meticulously marked terraces, all worked by hand, hoe and horse-drawn plough. A second wine, a declassified Côtes du Rhône, was introduced to improve the quality of the first through rigorous selection. Importantly, the picking regime—so critical to temper Viognier’s capricious tendencies—is now overseen by Jean-Louis Chave to deliver a seamless balance between ripeness and fine acidity.
 
We investigate the long history of this storied estate and how it became one of France’s two non-Burgundy single-appellation monopole vineyards on our website. Recently, Dan Keeling penned a thoughtful article on what he calls “arguably France’s most paradisiacal vineyard and enigmatic white wine” in Noble Rot Issue 33. On Grillet’s past, Keeling writes: “It’s easy to imagine generations of people looking up at Château-Grillet’s fairy-tale towers high on the hillside, and viscerally feeling themselves in the presence of majesty.” We visited Grillet for the first time last year, and it is indeed an enchanting and fascinating vineyard in which to spend time. Under the current ownership, it has the fairy-tale ending to match its mythical past.