Saint Cosme "Le Claux" Gigondas 2021
(Southern Rhone, France) - [VM 95-97] [JD 94]

Notes from the Winemaker:
Le Claux is a living testimony to one of the most fundamental events in the history of French winegrowing – the phylloxera crisis. The vineyard was replanted in 1870 using a rootstock that has all but disappeared today – the ‘Gloire de Montpellier’. It was one of the very first vineyards to be replanted in the Rhone. Producing wines again after such a tragedy must indeed have been ‘glorious’, there is no doubt about it. The masculinity of wines from Le Claux is coupled with a complexity that stems from the genetic diversity of all these old vines, every one of them different. The depth we achieve in Le Claux wines is always amazing, even in the most challenging vintages. In a vintage like 2019, that depth has more in common with the Mariana Trench than with the small pond that emerged after the storm on August 15. The magic of great wines is a pleasure, a gift from above shared by winegrowers the world over, because the joy brought by a good wine is one of Man’s pleasures that goes back aeons. Only the road leading to the village of Gigondas separates Le Claux from Hominis Fides. And yet, these wines are so different. This is always a good way of understanding the meaning of the system of designated vineyard sites devised by Cistercian monks in Burgundy. Before discarding the ideas of those who came before us, we need to reflect, try out other ideas numerous times, then make up our minds, by attempting to look far ahead.