Domaine Julien Cecillon - Les Graviers 2021
Price: $22.00
| Producer | Domaine Julien Cecillon |
| Country | France |
| Region | Rhône |
| Varietal | Syrah |
| Vintage | 2021 |
| Sku | 020009 |
| ABV | 13.50% |
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Julien Cécillon is a winery founded in 2011 by the husband-and-wife team of Texas-born Nancy Kershen and Rhône native Julien Cécillon. Julien’s long heritage in the Rhône is comprised of eleven generations of winemakers, including his lauded uncle, Jean-Louis Grippat. Before founding the domaine, the pair both traveled and workd around the world in the wine business: Nancy in New Zealand and Napa; Julien in South Africa, around the Rhône, and in California, where he and Nancy met. Julien and Nancy got things started with a tiny parcel in Saint-Joseph: only 0.3 hectares. Over the last ten years, they have amassed more bits and pieces of vineyards around Tournon; now, Cécillon has estate parcels of vines in Saint-Joseph and Crozes-Hermitage, but also some in the Ardèche near the village of Ardoix. Farming on the estate vineyards began conversion to organic farming in 2019; certification will be complete in 2022. All wines are fermented with native yeasts and aged primarily in neutral wood.
Les Graviers, made from 100% Syrah, is a négociant blend of three vineyard sites in the Rhône. Most of the fruit comes from the southern parts of the Drôme and Ardèche with a smaller amount from vineyards around Tournon. Les Graviers means gravel: the winery was a former gravel warehouse, and the market square in Tournon where Julien grew up is called Place des Graviers. The soils in this 4-hectare cluster of vineyards are clay-limestone and granite with pebbles; fermentation is 70% destemmed, 30% whole-cluster in stainless steel with the wine aging between 8 to 14 months in neutral barrels.
