Closerie Saint Roc, Vin de France

Imagine ducking down a narrow back alley in Paris—no sign out front, just cigarette smoke curling into the night air and the low hum of conversation spilling through an open door. Inside, a cramped wine bar with scarred wooden tables and a chalkboard menu written in hurried French. You ask what’s open. The bartender doesn’t explain—he just pours. Closerie Saint Roc 2019 is exactly the kind of bottle that would land in your glass in a place like this: thrilling, unadvertised, and known only to those paying attention. One of the most exciting new projects to emerge from Bordeaux in years—and from the benchmark 2019 vintage—it comes from the same family behind Château Le Puy, a wine with a near-cult following among sommeliers around the world. If you’ve ever had the top wines from Le Puy, you already know the feeling. Here, you get the depth and structure of great Right Bank Bordeaux paired with a purity of fruit so vivid it immediately brings Clos Rougeard to mind. Fanatically biodynamic, obsessively focused on fruit quality, and produced in tiny quantities, this is a bottle you’ll find at only a handful of places in the U.S. This is a special wine. If you love Bordeaux, this is mandatory drinking.

Bordeaux is a region shaped by centuries of trade, conflict, and quiet rivalry—divided by the Gironde into the Left Bank’s gravel-driven Cabernet vineyards and the Right Bank’s clay-and-limestone home of Merlot. The site of La Closerie Saint Roc itself carries history: perched between the old Camp de la Hire and the village of Monbadon, it was once a supply ground for soldiers from rival camps during medieval conflict between England and France, long before Bordeaux became a wine region. Centuries later, the land was rediscovered by Alex Anglebin, an ancestor of the Amoreau family of Château Le Puy, who replanted vineyards that had once been dominated by Mourvèdre and Colombard. In 2013, Pascal Amoreau (14th generation), joined by his son Adrien, Valérie Amoreau, and Harold Langlais, reacquired the land, renaming it La Closerie Saint Roc in tribute to its layered past and committing it once again to serious viticulture. The vines here—Merlot, Cabernet Sauvignon, and Cabernet Franc—now thrive on clay soils over fossil-rich limestone, just one kilometer south of Le Puy itself. 

Closerie Saint Roc is the next chapter of a philosophy more than four centuries in the making. Farming follows the same uncompromising biodynamic approach that defines Le Puy, but it’s in the cellar where this wine truly distinguishes itself. Fermentations occur naturally in large cement vats using a submerged-cap method that favors infusion over extraction. The wines then move by gravity into old barrels, where the Amoreaus employ their distinctive practice of dynamization—a slow, deliberate stirring of the wine on its lees, performed at regular intervals and often keyed to natural rhythms. This method gradually integrates texture and energy into the wine, building depth and stability from within, without relying on additives or sulfur. Nothing is rushed; nothing is imposed. The wine evolves on its own terms.

In the glass, the 2019 is strikingly pure and resonant. Black cherry, wild plum, and red currant lead, followed by violets, crushed limestone, savory herbs, and a subtle iron-tinged earthiness that feels inseparable from the soils beneath the vines. The palate is intense but beautifully composed, with fine-grained tannins, vibrant acidity, and a long, seamless finish that hums rather than shouts. This is Bordeaux built for the table. Pair it with entrecôte à la bordelaise, roast lamb with garlic and thyme, duck breast, or a simple steak frites—classic regional dishes that let the wine’s clarity and depth do the talking. Decant if opening young, cellar if you can. Either way, this is Bordeaux for people who actually love wine.