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Southern Rhone, Region of the Week

Written By: Brian Freedman on Tuesday, July 17, 2007

The Borsao Tinto 2005 may be from Spain, but the true spiritual home of grenache is, like so many of the great grape varieties, in France. Specifically the southern Rhone, where the warm weather is perfect for growing this fabulously food-friendly grape. Most people are familiar with wines labeled Cotes du Rhone—the one from Guigal is a perennial best buy—though they tend to be unfamiliar with what actually goes into that bottle. Typical of this region, these wines are blends of grenache, syrah, and mourvedre, often among other varieties, though as a rule of thumb when dealing with the Rhone Valley, the further north you go the more syrah is likely to be in the wine, and the further south you go, the more it’s likely to rely on grenache. But blending down south is key, and even within smaller areas, like the much-loved Chateauneuf-du-Pape, the blends of the individual bottlings can vary greatly. One of them, the Chateau de Beaucastel Chateauneuf-du-Pape Hommage a Jacques Perrin, is mainly old-vines mourvedre—a bit of an oddity here. Because this is primarily grenache country, and if you enjoy the telltale flavors of cherries and dried Mediterranean herbs, then this is where you’ll want to look.

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