From our Importer: The Northern Rhône has long been a major inspiration, having been lucky to work with legendary producers like Allemand, Clape, Gonon, and Verset, over almost two decades visiting the Mecca of Syrah. After launching France+Western, I finally met a new young producer whose work seeks to rival the old masters of the region: Jean-François Jacouton.

As a young boy, Jean-François worked alongside his grandfather, in family parcels of Saint Joseph lieu-dit Sainte Epine (just above Raymond Trollat's legendary old vines which now go into Gonon’s Vieilles Vignes bottling) perched above the village of Saint-Jean-de-Muzols. Jean-François fully took over the family vineyards in 2003 while also working in Côte-Rôtie, Hermitage, and Savoie, and then began Domaine-bottling in 2010. His Saint Joseph holdings include older vines (in lieux-dits Les Goutelles, Verset Est Paradis, and Tinal) that produce a stunningly dense Saint Joseph Rouge he labels Pierres d'Iserand. Farming la lutte raisonnée with horses and hand plowing, Jean-François is a true vigneron, spending almost all of his time in the vines. He is also reconstructing old stone terraces in his vines that went to forests after phylloxera, similar to what Thierry Allemand is doing in the Chaillot terraces of Cornas.

Jacouton also still farms apricots, cherries, and peaches (which has been the history in this region with Verset, Chave, and others), so beneficially his cellar is an old fruit warehouse on the granite plateau above the vines. The temperature of this cellar can be dropped to zero degrees Celcius, allowing him to work with lower levels of SO2 while maintaining cleanliness and precision. His vinification and aging are in cement, amphora, demi-muids, and larger foudres, and done parcel by parcel using only 15-25% new wood, so the whites are sexy and polished but still show restraint (a tiny production of Condrieu being in the earlier-harvested school of raciness and minerality), the reds are classic and old-school but also clean and precise, the older vines having more density, chewiness (also with greater inclusion of whole bunches) and age-ability. His entry-level IGP cuvées come from lieux-dits above Vion (the red at 120m-390 meters and whites up to 428 meters of elevation) and might be the best value wines I have tasted from the region.

As delicious as the wines are now, seeing JF’s effort in the vines, you get the sense here of a producer just beginning to stretch his wings. - Lyle Railsback

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