2019 Guy Farge Terroir de Granite Saint Joseph 750 ml

Generous black fruit. Elegant cracked pepper. Striking minerality.

These are the qualities that Syrah winemakers across the globe aspire to, yet rarely do you find them presented as powerfully as in the rugged Northern Rhône—and the 2019 Guy Farge Terroir de Granit Saint Joseph.

Grown on 60-year-old vines on steep, horse-plowed granite hillsides, this wine is classic Northern Rhône through and through, with inky concentration and spicy complexity plus touches of garrigue and roasted-meat savoriness. “Rich and layered, with a beautiful sense of minerality,” enthused Rhône authority Jeb Dunnuck. “It's incredibly impressive.”

Winegrowers often say, “Syrah likes a view.” That’s because the grape, which can deliver enticing fruit characteristics almost anywhere it’s grown, takes on outstanding complexity on sunny, well-draining hillsides like the ones found in Saint-Joseph.

Guy Farge’s family has been growing grapes in the region for a century. Starting in 1920 with a domaine of just 30 acres, they sold their stellar fruit for two generations, first to the Cave de Tain co-op, then to the Northern Rhône powerhouse Delas Frères. But in 2007, Farge started bottling his own cuvées from his family’s first-class terroir in Saint-Jean-de-Muzols, which lies just across the river from Hermitage.

Saint-Jean-de-Muzols is one of the six “naturally favored communes” of the sprawling Saint-Joseph appellation, according to Hugh Johnson and Jancis Robinson in the World Atlas of Wine. Those communes are where steep granitic slopes, similar to those of Hermitage, produce what Johnson and Robinson call “fresh, smoky, terroir-driven reds.”
In 2019, those slopes yielded a bold, balanced beauty whose depth and character will hold you rapt. With quality befitting a blue-chip appellation, this is a cellar-builder of the first order.