"Roussanne “Contours de Mairlant”- Domaine François Villard François Villard’s bottling of “Contours de Mairlant” is made from a blend of eighty-five percent Marsanne and fifteen percent Roussanne, with these vineyards actually planted within villages in the Condrieu appellation (though planted to the wrong grapes for the AOC). Thus it is listed as from the Collines Rhodaniennes. The wine is barrel-fermented and raised in three to five year-old barrels for eleven months. The wine comes at an even thirteen percent octane in the 2023 vintage and delivers a deep and complex bouquet of pear, tart orange, granitic soil tones, lemon peel, just a hint of vanillin oak and a lovely range of gently musky floral tones. On the palate the wine is crisp, full-bodied, focused and youthfully complex, with a superb core of fruit, lovely mineral undertow and grip, fine balance and a long, zesty finish. This is excellent and seems like it will age very well indeed."