Domaine Lombard - 'Azalée', IGP de la Drôme, Rhône, France (2022)

TASTING NOTES

Value for money alert! Swanky Rhône but half the price. Juicy red & black fruits with a touch of violets and heather, and a softened palate owing to some carbonic maceration. 

Brézème is an unusual, little-known district in the Rhône Valley south of St-Péray and well north of Montélimar at the northern end of the Côtes du Rhône-Villages territory.

According to Matt Walls in Wines of the Rhône, the wines of Brézème were first recorded in 1422 and the prices would regularly rival those of Hermitage to the north. Phylloxera wiped out vineyards in the district but in 1981 Jean-Marie and Sylvette Lombard planted one hectare (2.5 acres) of limestone and marl on a steep, south-facing slope above the River Drôme, and since has gradually extended the domaine to 23 ha (57 acres), certified organic by Ecocert. The tiny terraces on vertiginous slopes are as difficult to work as in Côte Rôtie, yet the wines sell for a fraction as much.

In 2012 Lombard sold the domaine to Philippe Sapet. Julien Montagnon was the winemaker until he fell out with Sapet in 2020, when Sapet installed his son-in-law Jonathan Almeras.