2016 August Clape, Saint Peray - Rhône - 3 Flasker (0,75 L)

Saint-Péray is a small appellation for still and sparkling white wines from the Saint-Péray and Toulaud communes of the Rhône valley, to the west of the city of Valence. Wines bearing the appellation name are generally made from the white Rhône variety, Marsanne, which dominates plantings here (the remainder, around 8 percent, is Roussanne).

Location and vineyard size
Saint-Péray is part of the Ardèche departement and its vines sit almost at the southernmost limit of the northern Rhône region that stretches south from Vienne. Its vineyards cover around 75 hectares (185 acres) and produce around 210,000L of wine yearly.

Being an area of generally sparkling wine production, Saint-Péray stands out among its neighbors. The northern Rhône is known for heavier, still wines (both red and white); the production of sparkling wines is otherwise left to the producers of the southern Rhône, and the specialists of Die in the east, with their Crémant de Die and Clairette de Die wines.

Here, Saint-Péray produces lighter-bodied sparkling wines in the méthode traditionelle.

Geography
Due to the immediate local topography, the climate here is not as hot as most locations in the valley, and the limestone-rich soils in parts of the region add to this temperature-moderating effect. This explains in some part the relatively light style of most of Saint-Péray's wines.

The Marsanne and Roussanne grapes grown do not have a reputation for producing particularly fine still wines here, which may be why the sparkling styles have been adopted.

History and production
Nonetheless, the tradition of producing sparkling wine here dates back to the 17th Century, when the wines were mentioned as being "pétillants seuls" (uniquely sparkling). This quality is further exploited a century later when secondary ferment in bottle is formally adopted by producers in the area.

This technique reputedly fell out of favour in the ensuing century, only to be resurrected in 1828 when a local vigneron, Louis Faure, begins trialling prise de mousse (sparkling wine production) across a large number of barrels and sparkling wine from the region begins to grow in reputation across France.

Like many wine regions across western Europe, however, phylloxera would decimate viticulture in the late 19th Century. It would only begin to recover in the first decades of the 20th Century.

In this period, Saint-Péray was predominantly sparkling and this represented about 90 percent of production. The region achieved AOC status in 1936 while still wine production was slowly growing.

An increasing number of Saint-Péray wines are fermented and even aged in oak barrels to add complexity. Prior to the introduction of stainless steel in French winemaking in the 1960s, most sparkling wines were fermented in this way. Unlike Champagne, however, Saint-Péray's warmer vineyard sites produce richly flavored still wines in addition to sparkling wines – a far cry from the highly acidic, thinly textured Coteaux Champenois.

Geographically, Saint-Péray is impressive. The small town, and some of its vineyards, are located on an alluvial plateau traced by a gentle bend in the Rhone river.

It is hemmed in by the vertiginous Crussol ridge, rising steeply from the western side of the plateau, on top of which stands the ruined 13th-century Crussol castle, overlooking the vineyards below. The slopes of the ridge are too steep even for the most daring in viticulture, with or without terracing.

Granite has been identified as being a valuable part of many Rhone terroirs, as it is an efficient heat retainer, provides rapid drainage and is of low fertility, which forces the vines to form deep, strong root systems. While granitic soils are not as prevalent in Saint-Péray as they are in the vineyards of Cornas just 1.5 km (1 mile) to the north, they can be found there in some of the gentler slopes just to the west of the Crussol. It is on these slopes that grapes for the richer, more richly flavored Saint-Péray wines are grown.