Tasted in Fleurie with Olivier Chastel, 23 February 2023.
Domaine Romanesca
1172 Route de la Chapelle des Bois
69820 Fleurie
Tel: +33 6 33 84 72 68
domaineromanesca.com
More reports with Domaine Romanesca
Olivier on 2022:
“I’m very happy with the quality – and it’s our first vintage AB – but the volume is about half and that’s down to the heat and dryness. Rich and powerful like the 2020s. We will probably start to bottle 22s at the end of the springtime to keep some of the freshness.”
Olivier on 2021:
“In 2021 we were converting to organic – 2022 is AB for everything here – that, plus the frost that hit the bottom of our slopes meant that there was no harvest from these lower slopes. Everything mid-slope, so about from the Moulin (à Vent), was quite correct. 21 – is less hot and more about finesse – we have no Juliennas – that was a combination of frost and hail. Overall, our 21s were still a little better than 2022 for volume – about 30 hl/ha – but we have a lot of old vines so it would be complicated ever to have 50 hl/ha – 35 would be nice though!”
This domaine is now starting to export to UK’s Wine Society.
The wines…
Wines of purity and complexity plus early drinkability – the latter is not always the case for the 21s – a great result!
These wines were mainly bottled in the summer of 2022:
2021 Fleurie
Were looking for crunchy fruit from this wine.
Directly a perfumed red fruit that would have you thinking ‘Fleurie!’ Fresh, sweeping flavour, slightly mineral – a wine of energy and deliciously finishing – not a round, easy, comforting wine. A potentially excellent wine.
2021 Morgon Chateau Gaillard
‘Not far from here – we don’t want our vines too far away!’ Old vines, plain-south-facing – nearly 1 hectare.
That’s got a lovely volume of aroma – fruity and exciting. Like the Fleurie it’s direct and mineral – expected for the label – delicious finishing but given the slight austerity today keep it for 1-2 years – let it relax a little more but it could also be excellent.
2021 Moulin à Vent Champ de Cour
1.2-hectares. Here in the bottom, plenty of frost – a large part not harvested. This bottled at Christmas
Airy, pretty red fruit. Extra width to this flavour, almost a little higher toned volatility but the middle and finishing flavours are very lovely and quite perfumed too – it’s completely delicious here.
2021 Moulin à Vent La Rochelle
Again, 1.2 hectares. This is the cuvée with 12 months barrel elevage.
A calmer, deeper aromatic – still with some attractive perfume. More supple, fine concentration and growing in mouth-watering complexity. The structure suggests waiting a year or two to drink but there’s no real austerity. Maybe the barrel has rounded the shape a little but there’s no overt flavour from these containers.