Winegrowers association Beaujolais-Bourgogne
9 July 2019
Article by John Gilman about Beaujolais 2016 in website view from the cellar May/June 2019
Domaine de la Pirolette is featured on page 121 with great scores!
2016 Saint Amour- Domaine de la Pirolette
I last tasted the 2016s from Virginie and Grégory Barbet’s new project, Domaine de la
Pirolette, back in the spring of 2018, when I spent a few days tasting in the region. I was very
happy to see how they had evolved with a bit of bottle age. The regular bottling of Saint Amour
from 2016 delivers excellent depth and complexity in its aromatic constellation of red and black
cherries, vinesmoke, gamebird, fresh thyme, a fine base of soil elements and a topnote of
woodsmoke. On the palate the wine is deep, full-bodied, soil-driven and starting to blossom
nicely, with an excellent core, modest tannins and a long, still fairly tightly-knit finish. The
Domaine de la Pirolette bottlings are made for the cellar and though this wine is very tasty right
now, it is still in climbing mode and will be more generous with a few more years’ worth of
bottle age. Fine, fine juice. 2019-2045. 92+.
2016 Saint Amour “le Carjot”- Domaine de la Pirolette
This is one of the single vineyard bottlings that the Barbets began producing for the first
time in the 2016 vintage. As I mentioned in the write up from my visit to the domaine, the
vineyard of le Carjot is planted on blue granite which Grégory describes as quite similar to Côte
du Py in Morgon. The wine is half barrel-fermented in nine hundred liter casks and half in
cement tank, with the elevage taking place in those large barrels. This wine was pretty tight when
I sampled it at the domaine, but it had not been in bottle all that long at the time. Today, the wine
is really rounding into form beautifully, offering up a superb and very pure bouquet of black
cherries, red plums, a touch of raw cocoa, gamebird, granitic soil tones, a touch of violet and a
smoky topnote. On the palate the wine is deep, full-bodied, focused and sappy at the core, with
excellent mineral drive, ripe, moderate tannins and a long, complex and very promising finish.
This wine showed a bit of oak influence on both the nose and palate fifteen months ago, but now,
it is only on the backend of the palate that there is still a bit of wood to integrate, as the nose has
already absorbed it completely. This is outstanding Saint Amour in the making, and though it is
quite approachable today, it still really deserves a bit more bottle age to fully blossom, as it is
going to be absolutely stellar when it has finally opened up completely. 2022-2055+. 94.