Generalising about the 2018 Rhône vintage is difficult. Where it was a small crop it was tiny and where it wasn’t it was big!

Equally paradoxical is the style of the wines – some of which are really attractive and seductive now, others are blockbusters that will require great patience.  Nor do these differences divide neatly into the Northern or Southern Rhône.   What is clear, though, is the pattern of the season: 2018 started with an intolerably prolonged wet period in Spring that was ended by a long bout of hot, dry weather that began at the end of June; there was an extremely hot August and finally a harvest period that was very warm throughout. One grower I spoke to described 2018 as “tropical.”  Low yields or high, 2018 produced rich, ripe grapes that were in tip top health. Alcohols and tannic structures were relatively high and acids low. There are plenty of delicious wines to seek out, but whether they are for keeping or drinking before 2017s, 2016s and 2015s varies from Domaine to Domaine – I have given a general idea below and will go into even more detail in our Rhône offer that will be launched on the 20th November. 

Last week Justerinis welcomed Jerome Abeille from the famed Chateauneuf du Pape estate, Mont Redon to St James’s Street.

After a typically French breakfast of coffee and croissant, we tasted a mouth-watering selection of Mont Redon wines. Jerome explained his wines to our team and described the enormous effort that goes into producing the highest quality Chateauneuf du Papes.

Mont Redon has been in the Abeille family since 1923. Four generations later and the winery remains in the capable hands of Jerome’s father, Jean, and his uncle, Didier Fabre. This striking domaine is very much a family affair; sons and cousins are charged with all aspects of the winery’s upkeep, from harvesting to export and sales; there is no let up for an estate that boasts close to 200 hectares.  It’s hard to image that Mont Redon once started out with a relatively tiny 2.5 hectare plot.

The Abeille-Fabre Family share with us their insights from the 2015 harvest at Château Mont-Redon, which reaches its end today, somewhat earlier than expected. 

“2015 has been a quite easy year on the climatic point of view all along the vegetative cycle, featuring a dry year with a hot summer marked by temperatures exceeding 40°C, thus accelerating the maturities and dropping acidity. This lasted until the beginning of September. We have had a crop with rarely equaled, healthy conditions, but experienced again a gap between alcoholic maturity and the phenolic one, therefore we had to wait quite a while in order to meet our expectations."

'After a very cold and rainy spring which lasted until mid July, warm days have finally arrived throughout August and early September.