Gour de Chaule Gigondas Cuvee Tradition 2022

More about Gour de Chaule

You’ll hear this story about a winery every now and then: a new generation appears on the scene, and an old patriarchal wine estate is suddenly run by a female. Thanks to her “feminine” touch, the wines soar in quality.

Well, the story is a little different this time. At Domaine du Gour de Chaulé, the estate has long been a stronghold of female leadership. Although the estate dates back to 1900, it was a woman that started to bottle wines for commercial sale back in the post-war era. It was then run by her daughter, and then by her granddaughter, Stéphanie Fumoso. For decades, these women produced some of the most soulful, sturdy, and traditional wines in the Southern Rhône.

These were the wines that many of us at Flatiron fell in love with 10, 15, or even 20 years ago. But in recent tastings, we have been surprised to discover that we love the wines even more. They have all the earthy soul of those earlier vintages, but they are also vibrant, lifted, and shockingly fresh.

It turns out that much of this can be attributed to a generational change back in 2018. Yet this time, it was a son, Paul Fumoso, taking over from a three-generation matriline. Paul promptly updated the winemaking by introducing a lighter touch, recognizing that in a warming climate, you need to fight for freshness.

Paul has fine-tuned the family recipe. He still uses the traditional concrete vats (which keep the fruit cool and pure) and he still believes in the magic of whole-cluster fermentation. But in warmer vintages, he dials back the stems slightly and reduces the extraction to ensure the wine doesn't become heavy or clumsy. The result is a Gigondas that tastes less like Châteauneuf-du-Pape, and more like a red wine you would expect to find in the northern half of the country.

Of course, the distinction from Châteauneuf-du-Pape can also be attributed to terroir. When we first fell in love with those early Gour de Chaulé bottlings, Gigondas was a category often dismissed as the "poor man’s Châteauneuf." Today, the region is forging its own identity. It sits in the shadow of the Dentelles de Montmirail mountains. These jagged limestone peaks provide shade and altitude, preserving acidity that is becoming much harder to find in the Southern Rhône.