100% Syrah. From Texier's younger (20-40-year-old) vines, planted on a south-facing slope on granite soils in the warm St-Julien-en-St-Alban zone (in the Ardeche on the northern bank of the Ouveze--to the west of the Rhone River, at the southern edge of the northern Rhone Valley). They are organically farmed and harvested by hand. The vinification and aging are identical to Texier's Brezeme bottling and thus purely expressive of the much warmer, sunnier microclimate and granite-rich St. Julien terroir: whole-cluster fermentation with native yeasts in open concrete tanks with no sulfur and a 6-8-day maceration; no extraction techniques (only a submerged cap for gentle infusion of color and flavor); aging in concrete tanks on the fine lees for 18-24 months with no racking; bottling is without fining or filtration and with only a minute dose of sulfur.
