Chapoutier Côtes du Rhône Villages, France 2020 (£9.50, Tesco) It’s one of life’s happier coincidences that the red wine style I like to drink most as the nights draw in and the bills bite also happens to offer some of the best value for money around. Fine examples of the red wines of southern France’s Rhône Valley that will leave you with change from a tenner are relatively easy to find in supermarkets. And with their warming wintry stew-ready combination of hedgerow fruit, peppery-spice and meaty and herby savouriness they seem perfectly pitched for days of swirling leaves and bonfire smoke. Tesco has a neat set of three fairly priced Côtes du Rhône wines at the moment. Palais St Vigni Côtes du Rhône 2021 is a simple but attractively juicy and spicy package for a mere £5; Tesco Finest Signargues Côtes du Rhône Villages 2021 (£8) adds considerable inky blackberry and liquorice depth; while Michel Chapoutier’s is exceptionally polished, darkly fruited and complex for its sub-£10 price tag.
Famille Perrin Ventoux Rouge, France 2021 (£9.99 or £8.99 as part of a mixed case of six bottles, majestic.co.uk) As ever in French regions, there’s a strict official hierarchy in the Rhône depending on which sub-region, village or vineyard the vines are found in. The idea is that quality, and distinctness of local character, gets better as you move from the largest unit, Côtes du Rhône, which can be a blend of grapes sourced across the region, through Côtes du Rhône Villages, and then to named villages and appellations, with the latter including such star names as Châteauneuf-du-Pape in the south of the valley near Avignon and Côte-Rôtie, which is closer to Lyon in the north. Some of the best-value Rhône wines I’ve tried recently come from appellations that are on the geographical fringes of the Rhône region. Aldi’s Chassaux et Fils Costières de Nîmes 2021, for example, is sourced from an appellation that is the bridge between the Rhône and the Languedoc and is full of satisfying dark fruit and spice that belies its £5.79 price tag, while Famille Perrin’s Ventoux, from vineyards around the legendary cycle climb, is vividly raspberry-and-blackberry fruity.
Domaine Lombard ‘Monicault’ Rouge, Brézème, Rhône, France 2020 (£17.95, yapp.co.uk) The Rhône Valley divides very neatly into two halves. In the smaller northern Rhône, with its vineyards shared by eight appellations (two of which are exclusively for white) following the broad sweep of the Rhône river south for roughly 40 miles from Vienne to Valence, the red wines are made from the syrah grape (with occasional seasoning from the white viognier). In the much larger southern Rhône, which starts around Montélimar, a further 30 miles south of Valence, it’s almost always about blends of grenache, syrah, mourvèdre and others. Aymeric Paillard Petit Père St-Joseph 2019 (£42, swig.co.uk) is a treat of an example of the mix of floral scents, freshly milled pepper, crunchy dark raspberry and bloody-meatiness found in the very best northern Rhône syrah, while Famille Brunier Télégramme Châteauneuf-du-Pape 2019 (£36, tanners-wine.co.uk) is a robust, plummy, garrigue-herby, yet polished and sun-filled southern Rhône blend. Domaine Lombard’s Monicault, meanwhile, with its intense but slinky, pepper-infused, dark raspberry and blackberry succulence, is from the unusual 100% syrah-specialist southern village of Brézème, giving it a stylistic signature that straddles the north-south divide.
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