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RHONE VALLEY
– BLENDING –
Château Isolette is a 45-hectare vineyard located in the Luberon national park, between the Rhone Valley to the North
and the Côtes de Provence region
Bought in 2018 by well-heeled Polish investors Mariusz
and Marta Gawron, Château Isolette in the Luberon
is undergoing major restructuring. With forty-five
hectares under vine, thirty of them entitled to Luberon
appellation status, this very old estate located between
Bonnieux and Apt sells the balance of its wines under the Ventoux
appellation and as varietal wine labelled IGP Méditerranée.
Over the last twenty years, explains estate director Olivier
Rouquet, the profile of the wines has changed: “The Luberon
used to grow a lot of Carignan, which we have grubbed up and
replaced with Syrah and Grenache. Consumers want rounded,
tannic wines, so maturation in large and small barrels is reserved
for age-worthy wines”.
Most of the estate’s red wines are tank-fermented. Its high-end
offerings can be matured for 18 to 24 months, but the estate’s
signature style is to steer clear of overt oak influence: “For our
reds, our priority is to preserve the fruit and roundness, so barrels
are only used to micro-oxygenate the wine. We use French wood
from the Tronçais forest (in the Allier region) with a very tight,
WINTER 2021 GILBERT & GAILLARD - THE FRENCH EXPERTS ON WINE 29