We have always adored the Rhône Valley in all its luminous, lavish, multi-faceted splendour. It is, though, an uncomfortable truth that the Rhône has fallen out of favour to the sorts of “precise”, “vivid”, “mineral-driven” wines that are easy to appreciate but hard to access.
By contrast, the immense Rhône Valley sits as a model of celebration and simplicity. There is freedom in a largely benevolent climate; a wide array of grape varieties, microclimates and soils; and the desire to articulate things as they are. Prices remain largely very fair for wines that – in the south especially – have remarkably wide drinking windows. Embroidered with silken fruits, berries and flowers, the wines are a joy to drink in the first few years, and will often hold for several decades. One does not come to Châteauneuf-du-Pape to die on the altar of acidity. We who love the tremor of the south are happy to luxuriate in the amplitude and pantheon of the Mediterranean, and feel compelled to invite others to bathe in its glow. To have it any other way would be to lose the essence of the wine world’s most famous and well-known appellation: the very first of its kind.