Jean-François Jacouton, Syrah "A Deux Pas" Ardèche, France 2021

100% Syrah on granite and fine-grained alluvial soil.

This Rhône Syrah is classic and old-school in style, but also clean and precise. The grapes are from 35 year old vines from two lieux-dits, “Les Goutelles Hautes” and “Les Bourelles”.

As a young boy, Jean-François Jacouton worked alongside his grandfather in family parcels of Saint Joseph lieu-dit Sainte Epine. He fully took over the family vineyards in 2003 while also working in Côte-Rôtie, Hermitage, and Savoie, and then began Domaine-bottling in 2010. Jean-François is a true vigneron, spending almost all of his time in the vines. He is also reconstructing old stone terraces in his vines that went to forests after phylloxera, similar to what Thierry Allemand is doing in the Chaillot terraces of Cornas.

Jacouton also still farms apricots, cherries, and peaches (which has been the history in this region with Verset, Chave, and others), so beneficially his cellar is an old fruit warehouse on the granite plateau above the vines. The temperature of this cellar can be dropped to zero degrees Celcius, allowing him to work with lower levels of SO2 while maintaining cleanliness and precision. His vinification and aging are in cement, amphora, demi-muids, and larger foudres, and done parcel by parcel using only 15-25% new wood.