Gonon, Souhaut, Dard et Ribo, and Chave: these are the most famous vignerons of Saint-Joseph (See our Complete Guide To Saint-Joseph) . We’re willing to bet that pretty soon we’ll be adding another name to this list: Domaine de l'Iserand's Jean-François Malsert.

Jean-François (his friends call him Jef) is a world-class grower making some of the most soulful, energetic and delicious wines of the northern Rhône (Check out our Complete Guide to the Northern Rhone Wine Region). His style is the perfect fusion of new-wave and classic with plenty of spicy, ripe, generous fruit delivered with a clear-cut mineral edge. The wines have the raw material to age gracefully for years, but they are so open and effusive it’s impossible to resist them in their ebullient youth.

Jef — who also runs a wine bar in the tiny village of Tournon-sur-Rhône — inherited an old parcel of steep, terraced vines from his grandfather. The vines had been tended to for years with extreme care, and always without chemical treatment, but Jef’s grandfather never made his own wine, simply selling off the grapes to local négociants eager for his pristine fruit.

Today, Jef carries on the tradition of his grandfather’s natural approach and now incorporates regenerative techniques, like seeded and natural cover crops and animals grazing between the rows.

In the cellar, he uses a combination of whole-cluster and destemmed fruit. The wines are fermented naturally in stainless steel and are aged half in tank and half in neutral 600-liter oak barrels. The wines are bottled unfined and unfiltered and given only a tiny dose of sulfur.

In a “normal” vintage, Jef produces two parcellaire cuvees: Sabot des Coppi (southeast exposure, granite and mica-schist soils) and Lou Taissou (direct south facing with granite and loess). In the challenging 2021 vintage, however, his yields were so minuscule that he decided to blend the fruit from the two sites together into one cuvée. A “super Saint-Joseph” if you will.

With gobs of rich black and red berry fruit, crushed black pepper, and a gentle kiss of classic Syrah smoke, the 2021 Saint-Joseph is absolutely singing right now and will continue to improve over the next 5-10 years.

Jean-François Malsert, Saint-Joseph, 2021 $37.99