Tasted with Maurice Delorme and his daughter Véronique Delys in St.Amour, 11 February 2019.
Domaine du Paradis
Sathonat
71570 Saint Amour Bellevue
Tel: +33 3 85 37 12 35
www.domaineduparadis-saintamour.fr
Maurice and Véronique on 2018:
“2018 was lovely – and we already got some gold medals for the St.Amour! It was a very warm year so we had no maladies – no fungus – but was hard for the newly planted vines, we removed the grapes from those young vines so that they didn’t tire in the dryness and could concentrate on their roots. It wasn’t a problem though as we had a good volume from the other vines – we worried at one stage that there might be too much but all ripened well.”
Maurice and Véronique on 2017:
“2017 was also a very nice vintage – but only a silver medal! No hail and frost in this area. For a number of years now we’ve been lucky to have a good result – since 2013 we are lucky – of course that’s the St.Amour, we had hail and some frost and hail in the last years in Pouilly-Fuissé! 2017 had lots of sunshine – we liked the good weather and it was a very clean harvest. Good small grapes with quite a high maturity – we had some luck as the storms with hail passed all around us, but didn’t hit.”
Only about 20% of the domaine’s production is actually commercialised in bottle.
The wines…
What a lovely St.Amour in 2017 – an easy buy recommendation – the style of the Pouilly is less my taste.
Deep colour. Ooh that’s a great nose for such a small glass – deeply fruited, faintly floral and highly inviting. Supple, round, layers of mobile, involving, flavour – simply great. Lovely texture. This is, it seems, a perfect St.Amour – bravo! Mouth-watering, a suggestion of saline finishing. Yes!
2017 Pouilly-Fuissé
Vines in Les Chailloux – so allowed to have 1er Cru. The part of the vines are the same age as Maurice – 90 years old. Not all the details are finished, so it’s still not yet possible to use the 1er cru label – maybe 2020(?) All barrel elevage, 20% new, but up to 5, 6, and 7 years old for the other barrels.
A big round nose, ripe, and oaked. Big in the mouth, supple – round – lots of ripe fruit – full-flavoured – and I must say, very tasty – but really not my style _ much, too much oak for me. Great texture and slowly lingering flavour. Saline right at the end too.