Syrah 'Les Jacques'

Color / Grapes

Red/Syrah

Region

Beaujolais

Appellation

IGP Comtés Rhodaniens

Features

Planted in 2015 as a confidential agronomic experiment, our now "adolescent" Syrah is beginning to produce beautiful, dense fruit that gains in complexity each year. It is farmed organicaly as the surrounding gamay vines of the domaine. Global warming and the similarities of our volcanic pink granite soils, with those of the northern Rhône Valley (Côte-Rôtie, Cornas, Saint Joseph, etc.) led us to take this bet. One hectare of vines have been planted on two of our best terroirs (Rochegrès, at the top of the appellation, and Vieremanin, mid-slope, below La Roche). The Syrah, highly resistant to drought, thrives gracefully on these sunny slopes. Due to its thicker skin, Syrah takes more time to ripen than Gamay, they are the last plots harvested, usually by every member of Château des Jacque's team, leading to a joyful end-of-harvest celebration.

Vinification

Picked and sorted by hand, the grapes are destemmed, starting their fermentation naturaly, the grapes then macerate slowly over the course of three or four weeks. Both pigeage and pumping over take place at different stages of the fermentation according to the vintage profile.

Winemaking and bottling

Our Syrah is aged in a concrete egg (1/3 of the wine) and in our old vaulted cellars in 228L french oak barrels (2/3) of wich about 1/3 are new.

Tasting / Food pairing

This deep but velvety wine with violet, rosemary and peppery aromas will perfectly match all sorts of dishes with great personality. Tapenade and olive appetizers, charcuterie and soft goat cheese boards, but also grilled fish with tomato and provence-herbs, grilled halloumi, roasted lamb with mint sauce, pulled pork or meat skewers.

Preservation

Syrah is still an experiment for us, but the first havested vintage (2018) is showing beatifully now in 2025. We believe that the increasing depth and concentration of this wine, planted on our best plots, combined with an ageing for 2/3 in oak barrels, will help developping good ageing potential.