The côtes-du-rhône wines

We are here on the papal wines between avignon and montélimar. let's discover villages often high perched with narrow lanes and shaded placettes. it is a tour in the heart of an ocean of vines.

châteauneuf-du-pape  Honor at the largest and the most famous vineyard. It is called "the wine of the kings and the king of the wines". The sight of these stocks planted at one meter one another on heated rollers, shaken by the Mistral, deafened by the cicadas, bathed by the perfume of the scrubland, helps to realize how much this vineyard is exceptional! Exceptional, the wines are also exceptional, wines of a plenitude, a width, an incomparable richness which, in sumptuous velvety, quickly make you forget the 15 ° of this nectar."

Tavel  It is the extremely envied best rosy of France, then why not one of best rosy of the world? The list of its lovers is long, it acts men of letters like Honore de Balzac, kings (Philippe le bel inter alia) or popes.  If the exceptional quality of Tavel is due to the nature of its ground, it also owes it to the nine type of vines which make it up, bringing him its clear ruby dress with topaz reflections, its power and the gouleyant side which is clean for him. The grenache is dominating, the other type of vines bourboulenc, calitor, carignan, cinsault, pale, picpoul, syrah and mourvèdre.

lirac  At 3 kilometers from Tavel, the vineyards overflow largely on the commune of Lirac. This Name covers three types of wines:  rosy the very close ones to Tavel francs, flexible fruity and are very typified but however less charnus,  the reds are powerful, generous with the very marked bouquet,  and a scarcity, a white of pale, fine wine to the exquisite perfume.

Cairanne  It is a little the view-point of the Côtes-du-Rhône wines Southerners. Top of the village, we dominate the southern Alpilles, the mounts of Gard and Ventoux. The vine invades the slopes and extends on the garrigues, a plain of small rollers and red clay.  You will find there demanding wines, opening out where reflect the truth of soil and the originality of the year. White, superb reds such as Cairanne 2000 or vintage Ebrescade 2000, a silky wine with the very fine tanins with the notes of crystallized oranges, figs, violet with a remarkable persistence in mouth. To also discover the vintage Scrubland 2001, confusing simplicity and of complexity.

Rasteau  The village that has three bell-towers emerges from an ocean of vines. From the Church Saint-Didier, the glance carries far to the Ventoux Mount which points its skin cranium. Rasteau gives its name to a Côte du Rhône villages, but also to a sweet wine and natural obtained by the mutage of musts to alcohol. Fermentation can be done with or without pulp, then giving sweet aperitif red wines or gilded to preserve five to ten years.

Sablet and seguret  Rolled up around its bell-tower, protected by its ramparts from the 14th century, with its narrow and shaded lanes punctuated of fountains, Sablet has an lot of charm. Its more beautiful assets can be observed on the road of Séguret, another village of the Côtes-du-Rhône wines, one of the most beautiful of France, placed in corbelling on the side of a rock in front of which it seems to climb down.

Gigondas  From here, the panorama on the vineyard and Cévènnes are imposing. The lanes go up to the bell-tower, revealing Laces of Montmirail, bars of Jurassic limestone. In the hollow of the slopes, large stocks seem to twist of pain. Gigondas is the other name for the left bank of the Rhone. Planted, very close to the one of the Châteauneuf-du-Pape, is dominated by the black grenache, the syrah, the mourvèdre and the cinsault. The production is in majority made of powerful, constructed red wines and of a large aromatic smoothness. In the field of Cayron, they still work like before. In the cellar, a 70 year old press Cock and concrete tanks.