Tanners
Made by the Gonnet family of Font de Michelle in Châteauneuf. Appealing bright raspberry fruits, some herbal detail. Medium-bodied, juicy Grenache fruit with good acidity. Lively and well balanced Côtes-du-Rhône with good typicity. Gentle wet-clay tannins on the finish. Juicy and easy to drink.
Domaine Georges Vernay
Dense purple. Lifted, fresh, spicy aromas, blackberry fruits shot through with violet. Light- to medium-bodied, deliciously concentrated fruits but very light in style, very drinkable and fresh. Essentially it’s an extremely vibrant, bright and drinkable expression of Joven Rhône Syrah that’s hard to get enough of. No rotundone to speak of in this vintage. Doesn’t quite have the detail and high-toned freshness of the 2016, but it has more depth of fruit and concentration, despite the lack of pepperiness.
Jean-Luc Colombo
Medium gold colour, quite deeply coloured. Vanilla, peach, apricot and cashew aromas, the fruit is ripe and the oak gives interest and spice. Full-bodied, rich, flowing, but with balanced acidity and good depth of fruit. Touch of flat peach and cream soda on the finish. The acidity is the thing that keeps it vital and drinkable. ‘Naughty but nice’ as the cream cake adverts used to say.
Domaine des Anges
Raspberry, raspberry leaf and a touch of cherry, some savoury elements among the fruit. Light- to medium-bodied, lively, with good acidity and brisk, snappy tannins. Not terribly long or complex, but it’s refreshing and drinkable. Balanced, dry finish – good mid-week drinking. They’ve been easy on the extraction, which was a wise move.
Daterra Viticultores
80-120 year-old-vines, hand harvested, no fining or filtration, minimum sulphur use. Field blend of Mouraton, Mencía, Garnacha Tintorera, Marenzao, Gran Negro, Dona Blanca, Colgadeira and Godello. Winemaker Laura Lorenzo was the winemaker and viticulturist at Dominio do Bibei for close to a decade. Searching blueberry and blackberry, the aromas are precise and vital. There’s a touch of reduction, but it’s a feature, not a fault. It’s perfumed. There are green fruits as well as red and black, like gooseberry. The aromas are like descending steps into a still, dark pool. But on the tongue, there’s energy, sap and salinity, sublime freshness, wonderful drinkability and a defined mineral edge. A quietly brilliant, entirely unshowy wine, relaxed in its own skin and not trying to be anything it’s not.
La Roche Buissière
Organic since 1980, 300 to 450m altitude. No sulphur except at bottling, and even then, very low. So unsurprisingly it’s lightly reductive, but not so much to detract from the wine. Juicy blackberry and loganberry, with juicy acidity and blackberry-hide tannins. A vibrant blast of juicy, authentic berry fruits, and plenty of structure. Not the most refined, but deliciously drinkable. Just super-fresh, lively and grippy berry fruits, really satisfying.
Mount Langi Ghiran
Very dense and closed at the time of tasting, but already starting to show some lifted floral notes among the ripe blueberry. Medium to full bodied, exceptionally smooth on the palate, with very ripe, smooth, velvet tannins. Long, but still closed on the palate. A wine of great purity, than reminds me somehow of a Syrah version of Secret de Sabon. Exceptionally pure and polished, but needs time to prove itself.
Domaine des Carabiniers
Grenache, Cinsault, Clairette, Syrah. Fairly deep pink but far from dark. Aromatics range across redcurrant and blood orange with a herbal background. Medium-bodied with an assertive feel in the mouth; dry, firm acidity, and plenty of fairly savoury fruit flavour. Medium length. Thoroughly drinkable, very well balanced, a considered and serious wine.
Mas de Cynanque
Honeyed and nutty on the nose but with bright freshness. Cheeky touch of toasted hazelnut. Full bodied, low acidity but balanced with minerality and bitterness. Medium length, very well balanced, which is quite a feat. Dry, grippy finish.