Dard & Ribo Crozes-Hermitage Blanc Les Karrieres 2024

The Land

Larnage is known in the Drome less for wine than for clay. The white kaolin quarried in the hills above the village went into pottery and bread-oven linings for centuries, and the name Les Karrieres points straight at it: the quarries. That white clay is the site. It sits in the hillier northern stretch of Crozes-Hermitage, away from the alluvial plain that makes most of the appellation's volume. Kaolin holds water without going heavy and reflects light back into the canopy, which keeps Marsanne fresh where it usually turns broad and flat. Sources differ on how much granite runs through the parcel, but the white clay is the defining element, and the reason this gets bottled apart from the estate's regular Crozes blanc.

The Wine

Marsanne, on its own, from old vines. Most Crozes-Hermitage blanc is a Marsanne and Roussanne blend, and the domaine's own regular white runs roughly 65 percent Roussanne. Fermentation and aging happen in wood, and the whites are racked without debourbage, the gross lees expelled during fermentation rather than settled out first. The wine then sits on its fine lees, which is where the texture comes from. The whites are also made without added sulfur now, a change that came later here than it did for the reds. Alcohol on the 2024 is 13 percent. Baked apple, quince, dried herbs and crushed stone, then a mid-weight arrival with a nutty, chewy grain that is the signature of old-vine Marsanne on white clay, closing dry, saline and long. 2024 across the northern Rhone was wet and fungal with yields cut by poor fruit set, but the whites picked in early September came in clean and precise.

The People

White wine is the quiet argument Dard and Ribo have been making since 1983. Roughly 35 percent of the domaine's 8.5 hectares is planted to white varieties in a region closer to 10 percent, and the partners keep their own massal selections of Roussanne rather than ordering clones. Whites were also the last thing they took sulfur out of. The reds have gone without since Rene-Jean Dard started making wine at 15, following his father's practice, but the whites held on longer, until the racking method gave them a way to work clean without it. Dard trained in Dijon and then Beaune, where he met Francois Ribo, and the two have run the domaine from Blanche-Laine at Mercurol ever since.

Food Pairing

Old-vine Marsanne with this much grain wants fat and salt rather than delicacy. Roast a chicken with tarragon and creme fraiche and pour it alongside; the wine's texture matches the sauce instead of fighting it. Scallops seared hard and finished with brown butter and hazelnuts pick up the nutty side directly. A gratin of potatoes and Beaufort, baked until the top blisters, works because the saline finish resets things between forkfuls. This is a white with enough weight to carry a winter dinner, which is not what most people expect from Crozes.