Wine-O-Pedia: The Rhone Valley Pt. 3

Now, next to Chateauneuf-du-Pape, we have an area, a pretty new area, called Vacqueyras. And Vacqueyras, Q-U-Y-E-R-A-S, my acronym is horrible, Vacqueyras is one of the newer Appalachians in the Rome. And it's coming on strong. This was a Cote du Rhone Appalachian for a number of years, and then was granted, I think, its own Appalachian in 1990, just like Rosteau and Van Sobe were. The Vacqueyras wines are kind of a bit more rustic than the Chateauneuf wines, but they have a quiet power, and they're also, I think, to me, a bit chunkier. They're a bit darker. They're full-bodied. They're beasties. There might be a little more Syrah or Mouvet working its way into the blends. The soils are actually quite similar. You know, and basically, the Vacqueyras shares a lot of similarities to its neighbor in Chateauneuf-du-Pape, maybe not quite so fine and maybe not quite the intensity. In the bigger years, but the Vacqueyras wines are increasing in quality and represent outstanding value. You can find many of Vacqueyras wine in that kind of like $20 price range, as opposed to a lot of Chateauneuf wines, which kind of start around $30, $35. So it's excellent value. Once again, the same grape varieties, Grenache, Syrah, Mouvet, with a lot of the other allowable grape varieties, maybe not quite as many as Chateauneuf-du-Pape that can legally find their way into the blend. Now, as we make our way from Vacqueyras, we're heading over to Gigondas. And Gigondas is probably, maybe the second most known appellation in the Southern Rome. And the Gigondas is a unique place. There's a reason it's its own appellation, because the wines are quite distinctive, especially vis-à-vis Chateauneuf-du-Pape. In Gigondas, again, we're dealing with Grenache, Syrah, and Mouvet again. Again, the soils can be a bit stony, but not quite as big pebbly as the Chateauneuf soils. They're a bit finer in that respect. Gigondas is a bit warmer. Okay, it's a hotter area. So the wines have a little more fire to them. They're a little more rustic, eating turkey legs, raw meat. They're these types of wines, even more so than Chateauneuf-du-Pape. All right. And one of the key factors here is there is a little bit of elevation in Gigondas. So what we see is a lot of the finest wines in Gigondas are made in an area called Montmirail. And it's basically in the shadows of this cliff face, this super cool thing called Les Dentelles. That's this huge outcropping. And the Gigondas, the top Gigondas wines, are growing kind of within that vicinity. A lot of them, the finer ones to me, are grown at those higher altitudes. Again, we're dealing with old vines. And price-wise, the wines kind of settle in in between Vacqueyras and Chateauneuf, price-wise. Okay, some of them, you don't get a lot of super expensive wines in Gigondas, but the wines are of a higher price range than the wines you see from Vacqueyras. But again, Grenache, Syrah, Mouved, but you do see the difference. If you have a Vacqueyras, a Gigondas, and a Chateauneuf all next to each other, you will see the difference. They're quite marked. That was, wait, I should probably write that down. Right, camera guy? Gigondas, that's a G. Gigondas, that's a G too. Can we get someone else to write these for me? All right, moving from Gigondas, now we're going to move into another red wine area that is, again, kind of like Rasteau and Van Sobe. It's an area that is getting more popular, but is still increasing in popularity. And that area is called Lirac. L-I-R-A-C, Liiiirac. Probably out of camera range now, but okay, cool. So let's put it down. I'll make it really small here so you can see it. Liiiirac, Lirac. Now, Lirac makes, to me, kind of like fun, bright, energetic, kind of jammy Rhone wines. There's always a lot of fruit in the wines. They're never quite as heavy as the Chateauneuf and Gigondas and Vacqueyras wines. They're a bit lighter on their feet, but they can have surprising power. The wines can have really good weight to them, wonderful kind of quiet intensity, but without the complexity of the other areas. In general, there are certain wines that kind of work above and beyond the Appalachian, but to me, it's a really fun place to get really high-quality $20 Rhone wines, okay? Lirac, look for it. If you see Lirac, buy it. They're yummy. Now, beyond that, you know, the Rhone has its own rosé Appalachian, okay? The Southern Rhone has an area called Tavelle, T-A-V-E-L, Tavelle. You see Tavelle, it's always pink. No such thing as a red Tavelle. Tavelle is a rosé-only Appalachian, and it's pretty unique in France. You know, there aren't too many rosé-only Appalachians. Is Tavelle the only one? Don't quote me on that. No dirty letters. But one of the only rosé-only Appalachians. Again, they're using the same grape varieties, but mostly more Grenache. They're using a lot of Senso. Comes in Cosenso, makes fabulous rosé. So Grenache, Senso, and these are big rosés. They're full-bodied rosés. It's a warm area. The grapes get really ripe, so you have their yummy, juicy, full-bodied rosés that actually have the structure to go more than one summer, okay? That's important to remember. If you buy Tavelle, you can drink it that summer, but if you drink it the next summer, you'll be just fine. There isn't this urgency to finish them off. They actually age for a year or two. Fabulous wines. Let's see. Then we have... Oh, dessert. Every area needs dessert, right? So now we're going to go to the Bombs de Venise. You know, Cameraguy, I'm not going to write that. Just make sure that one gets flashed. Bombs de Venise. Now, this area is unique in that it uses the muscat grape for all of its dessert wines. And the muscat grape, what they do is they tend to fortify them. They'll add a grape-neutral spirit to halt the fermentation at a certain point. Because they want a certain flavor profile with the wine. So they generally run kind of like, I don't know, with 16, 17% alcohol. But they have a lightness. And they have like an orange hard candy character to them. And flowers. Flowers and honey. And like the orange hard candies used to get in the doctor's office and you were good. That's kind of the character of Bombs de Venise wines. They age okay. You know, consume sooner as opposed to later. Because even though they're kind of fuller for the genre, they still have brightness. And they have this kind of like, you love me type character to them. And fabulous with a range of desserts. Fruit-based desserts. You know, your apple tarts. Your peach cobblers. Things like that. Bombs de Venise will go fabulous. Speaking of food. The Rhone Valley, the food is pretty big. They like hearty food in the Rhone Valley. And these wines accompany that type of cuisine. So, you know, lamb. Big lamb dishes. Lots of herbs. One pot dishes. Stews. That kind of thing. Pigeon. We don't do a lot of pigeon here in America, okay. But there they eat pigeon. And it's really good with pigeon. You know, game birds. That kind of deal. And also you get a little influence from the South. You get a little influence from Provence coming into the food as well. So it works actually. It kind of goes good with tomato. Like I haven't seen too many French wines that kind of work with a little bit of more tomato-y based dish. But these wines tend to fare very well with that genre. They drink well on their own too. They're really fun to drink. They're not severe wines. They're usually not tannic hard wines. They're usually joyous wines. And they're wines that generally you don't need to decant for a long time. The Grenache grape opens up quickly once you get it out of the bottle. So you can basically crack the cork and have a go at it straight away. Or maybe a half hour, 45 minutes in a decanter for a lot of the big ones. And you'll get to that special happy place. Let's see. What is that? Okay. Old vines. Food. All the Appalachians. What this stuff tastes like. All the grape varieties. You know, I think we're done. If that's not enough for you, well, you can go to bestwinesonline.com and check it out for yourself. Cheers.