2022 Clos de la Roilette Fleurie Griffe du Marquis

What every Beaujolais aspires to be in this doggy dog world.  Aged in two to six year-old Burgundy barrels from vines that are 80 plus years old. The result is in the palate: textured, lively, gorgeous and encapsulating with velvety, golden black berry fruit, hints of herbs and licorice with soft, delicate tannins that float like a baby deer across a snow capped suburban lawn.  Most of the oldest estate vines go into the Cuvée Tardive bottling; a portion of this elder parcel goes into the Griffe du Marquis, Roilette’s only barrique-aged wine. As on the rest of the estate, these old vines are farmed sustainably by lutte raisonnée and the soils worked by hand, only twice a year and very carefully in order to not do damage to the old roots. The fruit is manually harvested and fermented in whole clusters with native yeasts, kicking off Roilette’s version of traditional Beaujolais semi-carbonic vinification. The temperature-controlled fermentation takes place in open-top neutral vats with the cap kept submerged; the maceration for Griffe is approximately two weeks. Aging takes place in 2-to-8-year-old barriques. The wine is released later than the rest of the line-up, so it is always one vintage “behind” their current releases and is the tightest structurally upon release. Griffe du Marquis is also by far the smallest production of all Roilette wines.