Pierre Gaillard Masterful Northern Rhone

Masterful Northern Rhone from the Uber Craftsman

“Pierre Gaillard makes exciting, delicious wines in all three appellations. His St Joseph, in both white and red, is better than more prestigious ACs from less devoted, less artistic producers. Both cuvées of Côte-Rôtie are excellent, with lush, concentrated fruit and real freshness.” Jacqueline Friedrich, The Wines of France

If there was a Guild of Master Northern Rhône Wine Craftsmen, Pierre Gaillard would probably be the president. Be it a St Joseph, a Côte Rôtie or Condrieu, every time you open a bottle with his name on it you know you are going to get a thrilling, bristling expression of the site from where it came. That’s his thing. There is no dead weight in the Gaillard cellar and each wine offers precision and purity. This is not to suggest Gaillard is a technocrat. Far from it. He has great vineyards, infectious passion, makes good decisions and possesses a dirt under the fingernails grit which menas that most of the hard work has been done before the fruit arrives in the cellar. The quality if fruit he harvests, allied to his fine touch in the cellar, results in some of the most evocative, flavoursome and stylish Northern Rhône wines going around.

As anyone who tasted the recent arrivals at our recent trade days will already be aware, the Gaillard wines from 2009 are fleshy, succulent and seriously delicious, delivering clarity of ‘earth to glass’ in emphatic fashion. This is as it should be: 2009 is a superb Northern Rhone vintage. Also Gaillard’s vines are now into their third decade and, as they continue to mature, the wines just keep getting better and better. This improvement manifests itself in an added density and complexity. The St Joseph wines, the heart and soul of the Estate, are pure, stylish and very fine value. The Côte Rôtie is smoky and svelte; clearly a benchmark example (Gaillard was a key member of the Guigal team in the 80’s so he knows his way around this... learn more