2022 Domaine Les Aricoques Pan Le Rouze Gamay (6 Pack)

6x750ml

For a label that only began with the 2021 vintage, the duo of Romain Dupont and Guillaume Bellon have sure generated incredible excitement amongst wine lovers. These high school friends took over the farming of a nearly-5-hectare vineyard in Frangy (the locals are dubbed "Frangypans", hence the exuberance behind PAN!) within the Haute-Savoie.

It definitely draws our attention when young winemakers spend their formative years in dominant wine-producing regions - in the case of Romain and Guillaume, that includes the Rhône and New Zealand - and return to their home regions and implement what they've learned; the subtext there is the great hope of the producer to elevate their native appellations' wines and, by virtue of increasing the quality, thereby the notoriety as well.

They are in the extended process of converting their new home vineyard to biodynamic viticulture, which is in their estimation, paramount to creating the finest wines.

Le Rouze is entirely Gamay, with a focus on the freshness of the grape. Coming from the same high elevation soils, already Gamay here takes on a beautifully, compact, complex flavour of red fruit and spice, but the grapes see very little extraction before their fermenting in egg-shaped vats. There are some whole clusters maintained, which provide that lifted, delicate spice aromatically. The colour may more closely resemble a rosé, but don't let that fool you into thinking it's anything less than seriously delicious.