Jean-Baptiste Souillard is a micro-négociant based in the hills above Andance, crafting single-parcel wines from high-altitude, granite-rich sites across the Northern Rhône. Trained as an enologist, with time at Château Latour, Comte Armand, and a Cornas lab, he marries precision with old-world reverence for place. Inspired by the Cistercian method, his philosophy is both technical and spiritual: one parcel, one wine, each cuvée a faithful expression of its origin. In recent years, his wines have earned a cult following among those seeking Rhône wines of depth and restraint. His reds are whole-cluster, savory, and structured for the long haul; his whites are shaped by early oxidation, minerality, and a fine thread of savory tension. These are wines that unfold slowly, but with depth, clarity, and grace.

Tartaras covers five hundredths of a hectare, roughly an eighth of an acre, on a steep south-facing slope at 300 meters where schist sits over granite. The syrah went in during the 1990s. The pitch is severe enough that the grower works the rows with a chenillard, a low tracked crawler, because a conventional tractor would be too top-heavy. Whole-cluster use runs anywhere from 40 to 100 percent depending on the season, fermentation and maceration go two to three weeks on indigenous yeasts with pump-overs, and the wine rests 13 to 18 months in used barrels before going to bottle without fining or filtration.

Côte-Rôtie's schist gives this a different register than the granite cuvées: violet and raspberry up front, then juniper, dried lavender, and a graphite note that arrives late and lingers. The palate is narrow and long rather than broad, with acidity holding the fruit tight against tannins that will need time to loosen. Decant now with a decant or through 2040.