Jean-François 'Jef' Malsert is making some of the hottest new wines coming out of St-Joseph. He was the former owner of the pumping wine bar Carafe aux Foillies in Tournons (where he met his partner Saïda, a truly excellent chef), where he championed the early vintages of the likes of Dard et Ribo, but his ultimate dream was to make his own wine. Ever the grafter, he re-planted his grandfather's vines and continued to run the bar while he waited for them to start bearing fruit, eventually selling up shop and releasing his own wines in 2017. He works the land with his two mules, Lana and Cassius (as in Clay, lol, it's the biggest donkey I've ever seen in my life), and now has five hectares planted to vine - Chasselas, Marsanne, Rousanne, Viognier and Syrah, obvs. Conscious of the propensity of this area to produce big, hulking, beefy wines, Jef wanted to give a sense of freshness to his cuvées, so he often works with whole bunch carbonic maceration, giving a lovely green, integrated stemminess to the reds. He uses mostly amphora and concrete for ageing, with oak for some wines but he's using this less and less. These are top drawer, balanced, complex wines from a guy out here living his dream.