Michelas Saint Jemms, Saint-Joseph (Rhône Valley, France) 2017

 I had never even heard of this producer–much less tasted the wines–until happening upon some bottles in the midst of an open-call restaurant consulting project in the summer of 2018.  The quality of those bottles was stunning, and my first chance to taste them amongst their peers while in the Rhône in April of 2019 confirmed my stateside impressions.  This is a big, rich wine in the mold of 2017, with wonderful textural roundness and very impressive depth of flavor.  Complex now but sure to become much more so as this loses some primary fruit intensity that will be backfilled by bottle bouquet, this is currently marked mostly by a one-two punch of fruit and oak.  But that’s no knock on the wine:  The fruit is fabulous, and the oak balanced just right.