Latest in a nearly decade-long line-up sourced from Tablas Creek clonal material planted at Ciel du Cheval Vineyard and vinified in older barriques, DeLille’s 2011 Doyenne Roussanne offers a delightful and very varietally typical nose of lime zest, honeysuckle, orange blossom, bee’s wax, and white peach whose fuzz seems to coat the palate as an invigorating adjunct to inner-mouth floral perfume, faint waxiness, and luscious juiciness. A telltale nip of white pepper adds to the stimulation of a vibrantly persistent finish, and the too-frequent tendency with very ripe renditions of this grape toward bitterness or finishing flatness is entirely avoided. This tongue-tingler ought to prove delightfully versatile at table for at least 3-4 years, though in the process it’s likely to take on a honeyed and more richly-textured patina.
Winemaker-vineyard manager and self-styled “old world traditionalist” Chris Upchurch has been the guiding spirit of DeLille Cellars since its early-’90s inception, although the ostensibly Old World models followed have evolved significantly in both marketing and winemaking terms. Early-on, DeLille, unsurprisingly, – like so many other U.S. wineries – focused exclusively on a Bordelais vision. That said, Upchurch and his partners had been in business for nearly a decade before they purchased a vineyard: Grand Ciel, adjacent to Ciel du Cheval and Galitzine and managed by the accomplished and (seemingly in Red Mountain at least) ubiquitous Ryan Johnson. DeLille also vinifies and bottles separately the fruit of Harrison Hill’s antique vines (for more about which see my tasting note on the 2009 vintage) and a second estate vineyard project is afoot. The established if misleading name Chaleur Estate was retained for DeLille’s flagship wine crafted from contract fruit (second wine: D2); while the designation Doyenne – utilized from early-on for Syrah – morphed into an officially separate winery for experimental-minded exploration of themes inspired by Southern France. (For database purposes, we at The Wine Advocate / eRobertParker.com treat Doyenne as part of the relevant wines’ descriptions and a DeLille sub-label, which reflects the way those wines are marketed and the spirit in which they were presented to me. Comments on Upchurch’s vinificatory approaches can be found sprinkled though my tasting notes.)
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