"Aidan Bell
Amongst my favourite wines produced by the Perrin family. The 2020 has the most beautiful concentration of intense, finely-textured fruit and brilliant clarity of flavour with super length. Excellent."
Domaine du Clos des Tourelles is located below the village of Gigondas. Its historic and emblematic 10-hectare vineyard of very old Grenache, on limestone soils with a marly-sandy matrix, is the last Clos still existing in Gigondas
The 2020 vintage in Southern Rhône was favoured by very good weather conditions, it is a generous vintage, both in terms of quality and quantity. Not as hot as in 2019, this year was very windy, throughout the growing cycle, with light rainfalls. After a fairly mild winter (one single episode of frost was noted during the night of March 24th, but only the early ripening plots were very slightly affected). The spring was radiant, quite warm and very windy, which allowed the soils to preserve their freshness.
Flowering began on May 18th, under very healthy conditions. The good weather continued in June, July and August, with plenty of heat (but lower temperatures than in 2019) and significantly, cool and humid nights and consistent wind which continued to blow; preserving the freshness of the vines and maintaining perfect healthy conditions for the grapes. The harvest, which was fairly early, therefore began under these very good conditions on August 26th with the white Côtes-du-Rhône in Coudoulet and continued until the end of September with the Mourvèdre. September was warm at the beginning of the month and then more temperate, offering idyllic harvest conditions allowing each plot to be harvested at perfect maturity. The harvest was very healthy with beautiful juicy and very ripe grapes, reasonable alcohol levels, good acidity and already a great balance. The first tastings predict a very good vintage.
Marc Perrin summarised the vintage as ‘one of the all-time classics; the wines have superb intensity, wonderful poise, finesse and elegance. Each varietal was matured to perfection and our fortune of being at the funnel of the mistral wind is so telling.’ When asked which vintages were similar Marc referenced the greats of 1990 and 2010 noting that the wines will be enjoyable in their youth and also be great keepers.
