STRONG NAME, PRECIOUS VINEYARDS
A recent addition to our collection of vignerons, APS Wine & Spirits is proud to represent the father and son team, Bernard and Mathieu Chambeyron, whose ancestors replanted and helped save Syrah after the unforgiving invasion of phylloxera in the 1870s.
Readers of the wine press can be forgiven for thinking that the greatest winemakers are like the stars in the sky: forever fixed, unchanging and unmoving. Every time a “best-of” list comes out, it seems like the same cast of characters shows up. Well, the truth is always more complicated, exciting and nuanced. Some stars flash to brightness in places you never expected. If you’re gonna catch these stars before they go “nova” it’s good to watch the sky closely. That’s the story of our relationship with Domaine Chambeyron.
The Chambeyron family has been in Ampuis since 1895, primarily as fruit famers and winegrowers selling their bottles locally to their large circle of family, friends and town folk. The situation remained like this until the mid-1970’s when Bernard Chambeyron started to rethink his parents devotion to farming apricots and tobacco. The current vogue for Côte-Rôtie and Condrieu was still years away, but Bernard felt a much greater passion for the small Côtes-du-Rhône plots that his parents owned, than their apricot orchard. He had a nose for the best vineyards in the surrounding steep hillsides, and whenever the talk among his friends at the local boîte turned to vines coming up for sale, he would pay close attention. In this way he learned of stellar Côte-Rôtie parcels in Chavroche and Lancement and a miniscule plot in Vernon, the single finest Condrieu vineyard. By the early 80’s the core of the Chambeyron domaine had come into being. Since then, Bernard has been able to add one more Côte-Rôtie plot in Moutonnes and several plots of IPG Syrah and Viognier for a total of 5 hectare or 12.3 acres.
These sites alone brought shine to Domaine Chambeyron, but for years Bernard flew under the radar making savory Côte-Rôtie and dense, honeyed Condrieu that appeared in local restaurants, but never outside of France, much less into the glass of an American or English wine writer. Those who knew, knew and those who didn’t, didn’t.
Mathieu, Bernard’s son, grew up in the vineyards and cellar of Domaine Chambeyron, as Bernard had stopped farming apricots altogether by 1998. Having learned wine in the French way, at his father’s knee, Mathieu joined the domaine in 2010, taking full control in 2016. From the beginning, Mathieu’s influence was felt very quickly. In the vineyard he worked in the lutte raisonnee way, which meant no more pesticides. He also began a systematic program of identifiying the healthiest and highest-quality vines for replanting, known as selection massale and known to produce fruit of the greatest complexity and quality. Time-consuming, but well worth it. One last simple, but key, innovation in the vineyard was to harvest using small-capacity crates ensuring that the fruit arrived whole and sound at the cellar. You can see this in the pictures below. Just look at the brilliant Côte-Rôtie Syrah.
In the cellar, Mathieu continued the “light” vinification touch of his father with one significant change: rigorous fruit selection down to the single berry. His goal was to produce wines of balance and finesse, gently extracting the fruit essence of his special Syrah and Viognier. APS Wine & Spirits has been importing Chambeyron’s wines since 2014, having gotten a tip from one of our producer friends who had tasted the wines, and knew something special was going on there. Since the very beginning Mathieu’s wines stood out from the other Northern Rhône wines we tasted. It was only a matter of time before the wine critics got wind of Mathieu’s extraordinary Côte-Rôtie and Condrieu. And now they have. These days it’s practically routine for Mathieu to receive 90+ for his wines across the board. Come and catch the rising star of Mathieu and Domaine Chambeyron. You will be well glad you did.
Bernard planted .7 hectares of Viognier on the north side of Vernon in 1985. Vernon is recognized for producing Viognier of unparalleled intensity and energy, one of the top 3 sites for Viognier in the world, trademarked by its mica-sifted “arzelle”soils. Chambeyron’s expression is made from destemmed clusters, fermented in steel and enamel-lined concrete. The aging takes place in a trio of vessels: steel, enamel-lined concrete and 30 year-old barriques. Our cuvée is bottled in the fall and then allowed to rest in bottle for five months before shipping. Chambeyron’s Vernon shimmers with gold, sea-green and yellow. The high-volume aromatics of fresh and dried apricot, lavender and lemongrass roll seamlessly into a palate balanced by crushed stone and a confit of lemon-lime. This is a rock-star pairing for things with a shell, creamy sauces, Middle Eastern and Indian spices.
Pure Syrah from the decomposed granite soils of two famous vineyards of Côte-Rôtie: 2/3 La Chavaroche (Côte Brune) and 1/3 Lancement (Côte Blonde). Average age of the vines is 50 years, mostly destemmed and rigorously selected down to the individual berry with a small portion of perfectly healthy whole clusters added for grip and structure. The wine flows by gravity to cement vats where it ferments and then rests with stirring on a weekly basis. The wine then flows, again by gravity, into 400-liter ovals and is bottled unfiltered; small percentage of new oak. The 2020 is dynamic with red and black fruit, jolted by mouth-watering savory and spice. Sublimely textural, the vintage has that extra-special poof, that small but meaningful higher thread count. Superior Egyptian cotton, Côte-Rôtie?
From vines outside of the Côte-Rôtie dotted line, the bottle takes the name “Collines Rhondaniennes,” referring to the hills and valleys of the Northern Rhône. In theory, yes, a vague expansive hilly area, but in actuality Collines Rhondaniennes has pockets of precious terroir, old-vines, notably Syrah and Vioginer (some good Gamay too), on the step-over corners of Côte-Rôtie, Hermitage, and Condrieu. In other words, these are the wines you want to be drinking every night with your roasted bird, garlicky greens, and skinny fries.
Clara is the name of Mathieu Chambeyron’s daughter and first child. The Syrah vines come from 2 plots: the first, northwest beyond the Chavaroche vineyard, the second from Mathieu’s backyard, further up the hill on the windy plateau of Boucharey. The vines above Chavaroche are 50 years-old, the “house” vines are 30 years-old (the fruit was previously sold to Guigal and Delas). Due to the provenance of the vines, Mathieu adapts a conservative Côte-Rôtie-like practice in the cellar: basket-pressed with partial stems, cement fermentation, followed by maturation in 400 liter barrels (10 months, ~15% new wood). Cuvée Clara is lively with purple and pinkish rubies. The fruit leans more purple than red and gushes with white spice, molten earth, and tang. This isn’t a thin and crispy Syrah, there’s marrow and glow. Alcohol 13.5%
