Cotes du Rhone - TonghamTaster’s French Wine Tasting Course – week 19

The 12 month on-line course to help you learn about French wines - Top tips on how to get value when buying them - Reasonably priced up-to-date recommendations of what to buy and try in the UK - Bringing you the best of Tongham Village Hall wine tastings.

INTRODUCTION
This week we start our discovery of the Rhone valley wines with the very well known Cotes du Rhone and Cotes du Rhone Villages wines. But how much do you really know about these wines?

LOCALITY
The Rhone valley wine region runs from Vienne just south of Lyon to Avignon and slightly beyond. The generic appellations we are looking at this week cover this whole rather large area but these wines mainly come from the southern part of the area between Montelimar and Avignon. The vineyards given over to the Cotes du Rhone AOC are often the flatter sites. Being relatively close to the Mediterranean this is a quite dry and windswept region.

VARIETALS
The red and rose wines of Cotes du Rhone may contain, in theory, many different grape varietals. In practice the main varietals are Grenache Noir, which normally dominates, plus Syrah and Mourvedre. The Village wines must contain at least 80% of these varietals. Another 10 different black grape varietals (Cinsault, Carignan etc) are permitted and even some white grapes used in the region are permitted.
The white wines of Cotes du Rhone are mainly made with Grenache Blanc, Clairette, Marsanne, Roussanne, Viognier and Bourboulenc.

THE WINES

There must be few people who have drunk cheaper French wines who have not drunk red Cotes du Rhone. It is a wine you will find in almost every wine shop, supermarket, bar, brasserie and restaurant in France and beyond. It ranges from cheap plonk, through good value easy drinking red and rose wine, to some interesting serious reds.
Cotes du Rhone Villages represents higher quality than Cotes du Rhones as it has stricter regulations and requires lower yields. In addition about 20 of the top villages are allowed to append their names to the Cotes du Rhone Villages appellation – these represent the cream of these generic wines – look out for names such as Cairanne and Seguret on the labels.
The white wines are less well known and frankly I don’t favour them very much, although occasionally I find one to my liking. The roses are often good value quaffable wines.

THE TASTE
These wines can be light and fruity towards the bottom end but can also be quite big powerful wines at the top end. Very often there will be a spiciness to the wines. Don’t expect too much from the cheaper wines which are produced in huge quantities using carbonic maceration by the cooperatives. However, the top end Cotes du Rhone Villages can be fantastic value and quite special. These vary from Syrah dominated wines that will resemble a Crozes Hermitages to wines containing a blend of the main varietals aping a Chateauneuf du Pape.
Most Cotes du Rhone are good drunk young so no need to cellar these wines.

TOP TIPS
• Look out for Cotes du Rhone Villages as these are amongst the best value red wines in France. Do try some of the more expensive ones if recommended.
• 2007 and 2009 were great vintages in the Rhone Valley so you are almost guaranteed a pleasant wine if you buy Cotes du Rhone or Cotes du Rhone Villages from these years.

HOMEWORK
After struggling to find the wines of the South West you will have no trouble completing your homework this week. Buy and try one of the generic Rhone appellation wines which may include the following:

Waitrose - Guigal 2007 Côtes du Rhône Red– about £10 (highly recommended) - also available at Majestic and many other stores.
or if on a budget - Asda - Cellier des Dauphins Cru Cotes du Rhone Villages Vinsobres 2009 - about £6,
or Sainsbury - Taste the Difference Cotes du Rhone Villages 2009 - also about £6.

FOOD PAIRINGS
These wines will normally match well with any simple or spicy beef and lamb dishes, such as cottage pie or shepherds pie.  I tend to think of these as weekday wines rather than weekend wines. I find the whites go well with mild fish and vegetable curries. They are also party wines to be drunk on their own.

COMING SOON
Next week we cover the Southern Rhone red wine appellations such as Chateauneuf du Pape and Gigondas.  If you missed the early weeks of this course, it is not too late to catch up. Just click on the French Wine Course link at the top of this page.

Bronze Medal Marsanne at £3.47!

There is no doubt that I am lucky in normally being able to avoid the 3 bottles for £10 price range of wine. However, I was recently tempted to try a sub-four pound wine, based on consistently good reviews in the press and the fact that it won a bronze medal at the International Wine Challenge. The wine was from Asda and, on the day I bought it,it was priced at just £3.47! It was a Vins de Pays D’Oc Marsanne 2009. Various different wine writers such as Olly Smith, Jane McQuilty, Victoria Moore and Christine Austin had lavished praise on it with such phrases as…..Peach and white blossom……Fragrant touch…..Faintest hint of almond blossom and orange peel….Gentle appley spice……honeysuckle and apricot…..white pepper on the finish……soft tropical fruit scented…etc etc.



Peary Marsanne?



It is interesting how different tasters came up with fruits as different as apricot, apple, orange and tropical fruit! Unfortunately, I got something very akin to pear drops. Perhaps, not quite the banana flavour pear drops associated with Beaujolais Nouveau but certainly a candied pear flavour. Perhaps if I was a professional wine writer I would describe it as…..a hint of pear and marzipan!

For me this is a wine taste I am not particularly enjoying. I recently opened a bottle of the white Rhone wine Parallele 45 and it had exactly the same taste but more concentrated – which in my view made it worse rather than better.  Perhaps, it is just me but tastes that resemble sweet and fragrant in a dry wine just don't work unless you have it with exactly the right food.

However, at this price you might as well buy a bottle and come to your own opinion. It certainly makes a good food wine but perhaps not for drinking on its own. In the worse case you could cook with it! I certainly don’t know a better white wine at this price, but is it worth a bronze medal?  I scored it very creditable 12/20 but would prefer a glass of good Muscadet any time.

John's Tongham Taster Guide to Burgundy Wines

Generic Appellations

Frankly most cheap Burgundy is worth avoiding. Much Appellation Bourgogne Controlée is awful even when approaching £9 a bottle. Bourgogne Ordinaire and Bourgogne Grand Ordinaire are even worse and usually not good at any price. They are also confusing to the normal buyer as they expect the whites to be Chardonnay and the reds to be Pinot Noir but often they are not.
Bourgogne Aligoté is made with the Aligoté grape and is the wine that is traditionally used to make Kir - but is otherwise relatively uninteresting.

The sparkling Crémant de Bourgogne can be very good and also excellent value but as usual with French wines there is huge variability.

Chablis & Auxerrois Area

Chablis is very well known and popular in the UK and generally represents good value for money. It is made with the Chardonnay grape but the limestone and clay soils give it a unique fresh, flinty, sometimes steely, sometimes appley flavour. Its wine is very different to the other famous whites of Burgundy. In fact Chablis is quite a long way from the rest of Burgundy and is closer to Champagne.

Chablis can vary from the sublime to the ridiculously poor. Petit Chablis tends to be slightly lower quality but can be good. Chablis Premier Cru is well worth trying and can be great value for money in the £12 to £20 range. The Grands Crus are more expensive and unless you have a cellar to age them in, something to avoid as they taste awful when young. Our tasting of many supermarket and wine shop Chablis indicated that ASDA is definitely the place to go for an excellent, reasonably priced Chablis. Go to Laithwaites, Majestic etc to try a Premier Cru as a treat.

In the same general area of Chablis is an unusual appellation in that it is a Sauvignon Blanc in a sea of Chardonnay - Saint Bris. Similar to a Sancerre it is worth trying and reasonable value.
There are also a few reds in the area including Irancy and Epineuil. These two I would recommend if you see them and like light Pinot Noir. I have a real attachment to Irancy as it was the first wine I ever drank with Jane! The best grower is Colinot.

Epineuil is particularly good as a Rosé but I have only ever seen it in France.

Côte Chalonnaise

Much further South than Chablis but North of Macon is the Côte Chalonnaise. For most connoisseurs this area is where we search out our value wines. Look out for the wines of Mercurey, Rully, Montagny and especially Givry.

The wines of Givry used not to be so good but the recent examples I have tasted have been excellent. One of the best ever wines I tasted was a 1996 Louis Latour Mercurey Blanc. It was a hot summer's day and I was sitting under a Cherry tree on a really hot summer's day having Sunday lunch with Jane in our garden in France - a great memory and not all Mercureys have proved as good but I keep trying to recapture that day!

Côte de Beaune

Many of my favourite wines come from this area. Give me a good bottle of Puligny-Montrachet Premier Cru and I'll be your friend for life! This is a white Chardonnay that sets the standard for all others in my book.

When it comes to reds I love those of Aloxe-Corton. There is also good value in this area with some excellent reds at a good price from Monthélie, Savigny-les-Beaune and other appellations. There is also value to be had in the more generic Hautes Côtes de Beaune appellations. From Ladoix and Santenay come some pleasant rustic reds. I mustn't forget Pommard which is particularly popular with us Brits as it is one of the few Burgundy wine areas that we can pronounce properly.

Côte de Nuits

Together the Côte de Nuits and Côte de Beaune form the Côte D'Or, which is one the most famous wine areas in the world. It is great driving up the wine road from Beaune to Dijon and seeing all the great wine names of the world pass in front of your eyes - Nuits St Georges, Gevrey Chambertin, Vosne Romanée, Morey Saint Denis, Vougeot, Chambolle Musigny etc etc. Enough to bring tears to your eyes!

Unfortunately, many of these wines are extremely expensive but they represent the Pinot Noirs that the rest of the World aspires to emulate. The one wine in the region that tends not to be expensive - Fixin - is cheap for a reason but can sometimes be OK and at a price much cheaper than the rest.

The whites from this region are relatively rare. Right near Dijon is the appellation of Marsannay and here is produced what I regard as possibly the best rosé wine in the world.

General

In Burgundy Grands Crus are the top wines and normally out of most ordinary folks' price range. They often need ageing to get the best out of them. Premiers Crus are the next level down and give a reasonable guarantee of quality and are often more affordable.

The commune appellations are very hit and miss. This all makes Burgundy such a frustrating area, but the wines can be sublime.

The best way to buy is to spend the afternoon in a wine cellar of a négociant in the area trying many different wines or to chase the recommendations of the wine critics before they are sold out.

A votre santé !