Domaine Gourt de Mautens
Jerome Bressy
Rasteau
2005

The producer

Gourt de Moutens is founded by Jerome Bressy in 1996, yet Jerome’s father, Yves Bressy, had been growing grapes for several decades before that and selling to the local co-operative. Yves even took the important decision to convert the vineyards to organic farming in 1989. In 2008 Jerome then completed conversion of the vineyards to biodynamic farming, with certification from Biodyvin.

The vines are ancient, with many over 80 years old, and the variety of vines planted is extraordinary. Local rarities like Counoise, Muscardin, and Vaccarese, are co-planted – for the maximum biodiversity, as Jerome puts it – with more widely grown Syrah, Carignan, and Mourvedre. When the Rasteau appellation was created in 2010, and a strict ruleset on which grape varieties could be planted in the Rasteau vineyards introduced, Jerome decided to leave the appellation and sell his wines as IGP Vaucluse, rather than reduce the biodiversity of his vineyards, as he puts it.

The wines have incredible purity, concentration, and sense of place, and are indeed amongst the finest of the southern Rhone.

The wine

Gourt de Martens Rouge Jerome Bressy is made from vines which are between 30 and 100 years old and is usually a blend of varying proportions of Grenache, Mourvedre, Carignan, Cinsault, and other permitted varieties. After wild fermentation in tronconic oak vats, the wine is then aged in a blend of concrete vats and oak barrels. Soft and succulent red fruit is complemented by layers of complex earthy and meaty aromatics; the palate is rich and round yet with an incredible fresh structure and lively finish; this is a serious and truly outstanding Vaucluse.

We choose our wines based on a range of criteria (see how we choose our wines) of which critic scores is just one. Rather than simply highlight the best score to promote a wine, our average critic score is calculated from the scores provided by several respected wine critics, who we follow for specific regions. They do not represent all critic scores and, wherever possible, we try and give more weight to more recent reviews. Where appropriate we consider market-based scores like Global Wine Score or Wine Searcher Average scores.

As a rule, we look to offer wines that achieve a 92/100 average critic score or better and frankly a lot of very good wines simply don’t make the cut. As a high-end provider we want to reflect that positioning in the quality of wines we offer. Such wines are only a tiny fraction of those generally on offer in the market. We believe that an average score is a more conservative and representative approach, but it is still subjective and only offered as a guide to our customers, who will (and should) do their own research. We will add individual critic scores to our website in the future.