"Yann Menager is the owner and winemaker for this small new domaine based in Saint-Joseph just south of Condrieu. He has been the vineyard manager for Yves Cuilleron for the last 15 years and right now still works most days in that role. Using his knowledge of the great vineyard sites in the northern Rhône though, Yann has purchased some superbly sited vineyards over the last few years to start producing his own wines. To date he has acquired holdings of 6.5ha in Saint-Joseph, Condrieu and Côte Rôtie. His goal is to make the wines as simply as possible, with minimum intervention and a focus on purity. To that end he aims to keep his production small, with just a few barrels of each wine produced each year.
His winery is located high above the vineyards of Saint Joseph on his family’s farm in the tiny hamlet of Champailler at 798m elevation, below the aptly named Roche Paradis. Picking is done by hand, yields are kept low at around 35 hl/ha or less and all wines undergo natural (native yeast) ferment and natural malolactic conversion. The result is a range of wines that show superb energy and balance, with a freshness and finesse that harks back to a day before super-extraction and lots of new oak became de-rigueur in the Northern Rhône." - Vintage and Vine
