Domaine des Escaravailles Cotes du Rhone Villages Rasteau 1997
We have 5 in stock (Inventory is live and accurate)
Summer Shipping Advisory: Orders may be temporarily held during periods of extreme heat to ensure wine arrives in optimal condition.
View current shipping weather map →
The Land
The Rasteau on this label is not the appellation you buy today. In 1997 Rasteau's dry reds were a named commune inside Côtes du Rhône Villages, a rank they had held since 1966, and INAO did not elevate them to a standalone cru until 2010. The only Rasteau appellation standing on its own at the time was the Vin Doux Naturel, recognized in 1944. The village sits on a hilltop at 200 meters, facing south toward the Dentelles de Montmirail and shielded from the worst of the Mistral. Escaravailles farms 40 hectares here on stony clay-limestone slopes, its parcels running from 260 to 340 meters, among the highest in the commune. Cold nights at that elevation delay ripening and hold acidity, which is why a bottle from 1997 is still worth opening.
The Wine
Grenache leads, as it does in every Rasteau red, filled out with Syrah and Mourvèdre; the exact 1997 blend was never published. The vintage matters here. 1997 ran cooler than average in the southern Rhône, and uneven flowering left ripening irregular, producing lighter, earlier-maturing wines than the decade's benchmarks. At twenty-nine years this is fully tertiary: a bricked garnet rim, dried cherry and fig, leather, tobacco, dried thyme and rosemary, orange peel, and tannin long since resolved into the fruit. Stand the bottle upright a full day, decant slowly off the sediment, and pour right away — a wine this old and this light-framed can fade inside half an hour. Serve at 60 to 62 degrees. Provenance decides everything with a bottle like this, and variation between corks is real.
The People
Jean-Louis Ferran founded the domaine in 1953 with his sons Daniel and Jean-Pierre, taking on a ruined hillside farmhouse with no electricity, no running water, and vineyards the monks had abandoned. The name comes from escaravay, the local dialect word for scarab: the Black Penitents of Avignon owned this land, appear in the Rasteau archives in 1623, and worked the rows in black robes that made them look like beetles from a distance. The beetle has been on the label ever since. This 1997 predates the current era — Daniel ran the estate then, Gilles took over in 1999, and his daughter Madeline joined the cellar in 2019. The family farms 40 hectares in Rasteau plus 25 across Cairanne, Roaix, Villedieu and Saint Roman de Malegarde, plowing rather than spraying and fertilizing organically.
Food Pairing
Mature Grenache wants slow cooking and savory depth, not char. A daube provençale with orange peel, black olives and thyme is the natural match: the wine's dried-fruit sweetness meets the braise, and its softened tannin will not fight the tomato's acidity. Roast leg of lamb studded with garlic and rosemary works on the garrigue register alone. Mushroom risotto finished with parmesan picks up the forest-floor side. For cheese, a two-year Comté, nothing washed-rind. This is a bottle for a Sunday with people who will notice what twenty-nine years did to it.
We ship wine to most states with a $100 minimum order for shipping. We don't ship spirits nor beer.
Weather shipping advisory: Orders placed during times of extreme heat or extreme cold will be held for no charge until more favorable weather returns.
The Rhône Valley is a diverse and historic wine region, divided into two distinct areas. The Northern Rhône is the birthplace of Syrah, with steep, terraced vineyards that produce some of the world's most revered wines, such as those from Hermitage and Côte-Rôtie. The Southern Rhône is much more expansive, offering a wider range of styles, but typically based around Grenache-based blends, with wines from Châteauneuf-du-Pape known for their complexity and power. While the region is celebrated for its reds, it also produces incredible textured whites, and as a whole the region displays the spectrum of French wine and the incredible differences that can come from small geographic changes.
Rhone Valley
Grenache is a widely planted grape variety that thrives in its Mediterranean home. In Spain, it's known as Garnacha, where it reaches its peak in the Sierra de Gredos as a pure varietal wine, while also being a key blending component in Rioja. France's Southern Rhône, notably Châteauneuf-du-Pape, is another well-known region, where Grenache is often the base of a blended wine. Grenache also finds a home in Sardinia as Cannonau, and it has spread beyond its Mediterranean origins, most famously to Australia's Barossa Valley. The resulting wines are typically light in color, yet they possess a full body and flavor, displaying mature red fruit notes, herbal spices, and often a hint of orange peel, along with soft tannins and moderate acidity. It is an incredibly versatile grape, showing different expressions based on its terroir and the winemaking style employed.
