Rhone Wine Tours

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Rhone Wine Tours

Wine tours and tastings throughout the Rhone Valley, from Chateauneuf-du-Pape to Cote-Rotie and from Avignon to Lyon.

Wine tours throughout the Rhone Valley and wine tastings at a place to suit you.

19/12/2024

Domaine Christophe Billon, Côte-Rôtie "Les Elotins" 2014

2014 was very far from my favourite Rhône vintage, whether in the south or north. I bought very little, especially of the more prestigious crus, as older vintages that I preferred were still available at similar prices. One of the few Côte-Rôtie that I spent my hard-earned cash on was this. Even so, given '14s were generally less structured, less concentrated, I wasn't sure how it would be after 10 years.

If it's possible, Les Elotins seems to have gained weight and colour since I last tasted it around 7 years ago. It's still dark and, remarkably, a bit closed. And the tannins certainly haven't had their final say. There are red fruits, licorice, charcoal, a touch of petrol and, as it opens up, red plum.

It's not enough to change my general view of 2014, but I can't believe how young, how just plain good it is.

13/12/2024

Domaine Le Roc, Fronton "Le Classique" 2020

The south west of France is a treasure trove of local grape varieties giving each region its own strong identity - malbec in Cahors, tannat in Madiran, mansois in Marcillac and so on. In Fronton the native grape in négrette, in this case associated with a splash of syrah and a drop of cabernet sauvignon.

So much character for less than 7€ in my local supermarket - wild plums, blackcurrant, a bit of spice. It's a bit untamed, but in a very good way.
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10/12/2024

Margot Boussard, winemaker at Domaine Olivier Boussard, Nitry

My all too brief stop in northern Burgundy happened to coincide with the "portes ouvertes" at Domaine Olivier Boussard where I picked up a few bottles of Chablis and Bourgogne blanc.

Margot was telling me that the estate's Bourgogne Rouge "Cuvée Margot" was named after her by her dad because the first vintage was 2001, the year of her birth. I suddenly felt very old.

If you live in London you can drink that very wine at Gordon's Wine Bar, the atmospheric drinking spot right by Embankment tube. As if you needed a reason.

04/12/2024

A one night stop in northern Burgundy where we eat and drink local (obviously). I start with a glass of very good Crémant de Bourgogne, although whose I couldn't say. With my "salade paysanne" (leaves, lardons, gizzards, croutons and a poached egg) I have a glass of Domaine Bardet's bone dry Petit Chablis and with my andouillette (tripe sausage) and fries, a glass of Domaine Ferrari's bright, juicy Irancy. My partner took the safer option of steak frites - you're either an andouillette person or you're not. Then, just for the hell of it, a glass of Domaine des Quatre Saison's Bourgogne Epineuil. A bit like the andouillette, you either love the knife-edge pinot noirs of northern Burgundy or you don't. Personally I can't get enough of them and the Quatre Saisons, bursting with red hedgerow fruit, was a delicious example of the type.

29/11/2024

Carole Noizet's estate is on the edge of the village of Thil on the massif de Saint-Thierry. It was one of the few parts of winemaking Champagne that I hadn't visited but as we were skirting Reims we decided to take a short detour off the autoroute.

Saint-Thierry isn't a region full of superstar estates - Chartogne-Taillet in nearby Merfy is probably the best known - but prices are remarkably reasonable.

Carole Noizet's "Selection" Brut cost me 19€ and of the three other cuvées I bought broke the most expensive, at 20.50€, was the blanc de noirs "Perle Noire". A spot of googling suggests her neighbours' wines are in the same ballpark.

The Selection is 50% chardonnay, 30% meurnier and 20% pinot noir. It's a delicate wine and tastes of lemon shortbread. The dosage is well-judged. Not the most complex champagne but ideal as an aperitif.

27/11/2024

La R***e du Vin de France has published a review of Châteauneuf-du-Pape's 2022 reds. 52 estates were chosen out of approximately 300 that produce wine under their own name. (This last number has been given to me by more than one winemaker but I haven't checked the official figures.) Let's call that just one in six. So I'm delighted that Rhône Wine Tours' friends - some of them not famous but producing great wine - have made the cut.

I choose to work with estates when they meet two criteria - are the wines good (obviously) and are the people who own/run them friendly and welcoming. RVF's review doesn't consider the latter but I'm delighted we see eye to eye on quality. Congratulations to...

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All of these estates export - for example, Galévan is available in the USA and UK. So even if the wines aren't available in your local supermarket/Majestic/K&L/etc, with a little patience you should be able to track them down.

20/11/2024

The London skyline from on high, November 20th

1 Looking out towards Canary Wharf
2 and 3 If you look closely you can see Saint Paul's cathedral and the London Eye
4 I could find out the actual name of this building but for many people it's just the one that resembles an old school mobile phone and was responsible for frying cars with its reflected sunlight.

It looks and was marvellously sunny but it was also 2°C and windy. My fingers were like blocks of ice.

19/11/2024

Morris dancing, Southport, November 16th

It's not every day that you come across traditional folk dancing in the middle of the street.

17/11/2024

Tesco wine.

I know I'm lucky. I live in the Rhône Valley. I have my pick of wineries on the doorstep where I can buy a bottle of great wine for less than 10€.

Liverpool, where I am right now, isn't known for its vineyards. But I even struggle to find a proper wine merchant (Bargain Booze doesn't count). Which leaves me with a choice, in this neighbourhood, of two supermarkets - a large Tesco and a Lidl.

Some context. Taxes make up a large part of the cost of wine in the UK, especially at the cheaper end of the market. And none of these bottles was expensive - £10-11 max - so the value of the wines themselves wasn't high. But then again, four of the five are in so-called Tesco's "Finest" range.

In order of opening...

Swartland Shiraz - a hole in the middle where the fruit should be. Blurred and dilute. Didn't finish - used some for cooking.

Côtes de Gascogne - colombard and petit mansang. For those who think cheap NZ sauvignon too subtle. I couldn't drink it although my partner thought it was fine.

Paul Mas Reserve Viognier - not just Reserve, also, apparently, single vineyard, although I can't imagine how big that vineyard is. It avoids the typical viognier clichés of apricot, violets etc by having no discernable character whatsoever. My local growers' co-op will sell me a 5 litre box of viognier for 15€ which is a big step up. On the other hand, it was drinkable.

Saint Chinian - some dark fruit, some earthiness, bit of spice. Not great but recognisably from the south of France.

Balfour English White - the best of the bunch. You need to like acidity but it doesn't smell like granny's perfume or cat's p*e. It has focus and definition. Put it with prawns and aioli or oysters and you'd be laughing. From memory, the blend includes chardonnay, bacchus and pinot noir (yes, you read that correctly). There may be some pinot blanc too.

This isn't a dig at Tesco in particular - they just happened to be local. The range is dull and brand-led but I could have repeated the experiment in just about all the big UK supermarkets. The only conclusion to be drawn here is god help you if you're a UK wine drinker on a budget.

13/11/2024

The Shard, London, November 12th

310 metres - a little over 1,000 feet - and 95 stories. Impressive because of its size but hardly beautiful.

12/11/2024

London, November 12th

A beautifully sunny morning on London Bridge - even the Thames looks blue.

The Square Mile, the financial heart of the city, has undergone a massive transformation in the last twenty years, but you can still find the old existing alongside the new - that porticoed building on the riverfront, dwarfed by its modern neighbours, is the old Billingsgate fish market.

11/11/2024

Domaine La Barroche, Châteauneuf-du-Pape

In the cellar at La Barroche with its line up of concrete fermentation "tulips". From here the wine goes downstairs to age.

After several visits where I kept saying that my favourite wine of the tasting was the red "Pure" 2021 - 100% grenache from ancient vines in the Rayas plot - I finally put my money where my mouth is and bought it. That grape, that vintage, plus the sandy soils of Rayas produce a jewel of a Châteauneuf that one could almost call Burgundian.

Rhône Wine Tours is now taking a few weeks off. So expect to see a bit less CdP and a bit more UK.

08/11/2024

Saint Pantaléon les Vignes, November 7th

The setting sun, dropping behind the Ardèche hills, was blazing deep, deep red. It was enough to make me pull over the car and start snapping. The photo doesn't do it justice but I share it nonetheless.

07/11/2024

Frédéric Julien, owner/winemaker at Domaine Gramiller, Rasteau, November 4th

A couple of months ago La R***e du Vin de France, the biggest French wine magazine, did a comprehensive Côtes du Rhône tasting. I'm no fan of scoring wine but, that said, Fred's "Pruine" and "Plenitude" were the highest-ranked 2023 red and white respectively.

Maybe that was behind RVF's decision to visit Fred to do a proper profile alongside his neighbour Elodie Balme, another of the band of excellent "modern" Rasteau vigneron(ne)s.

If you live in the UK then you can buy Fred's wines from either or

If you live in the USA then I'm afraid that currently Fred doesn't have an American importer (although, admittedly, you might not think that your biggest problem right now).

It would be false modesty if I failed to mention that Rhône Wine Tours has been taking people to meet both Fred and Elodie for years.

31/10/2024

Domaine Maby, Tavel "Libiamo" 2023

Some might consider it a bit late in the year to be recommending a rosé, but then this is no normal rosé and "summer only" rules don't apply.

Libiamo is a 50/50 blend of grenache noir and blanc aged in new 600 litre barrels. The oak lends spice to the subtle red fruits - the domaine's non-oaked Tavels are more obviously raspberryish - and adds to the sumptuous texture. Tasted blind, I'm not sure how many people would even guess it's a rosé. Regardless of what you might think from the colour, it's properly dry. Cindy, who works at Domaine Maby, suggested salmon as a good match and I can easily see that. Personally I'd also be tempted to go a bit Middle Eastern.

This is one of two rosés that have really impressed me this year. The other was made by Domaine Serre Besson in Vinsobres. Its Rosé de Macération is also oaked, although to a lesser degree, also organic, but I think, on reflection, what I like about both of them is the desire to take rosé seriously rather than produce another simple pale pink quaffer.

30/10/2024

Châteauneuf-du-Pape, October 28th

A beautiful autumn day with the temperature hovering around 23°C. The photo looks out over a plot of syrah in the Palestor vineyard owned by Domaine de Saint Siffrein towards the hills of the Dentelles de Montmirail, where Gigondas, Vacqueyras and Beaumes de Venise lie, and, with its peak hidden in the clouds, Mont Ventoux.

22/10/2024

Autumn morning in Nyons from my bedroom window. Mist hangs over the river Eygues (or Aigues/Aygues/Aigue - the spelling changes as you move down river) and the sun starts to clear the hill at 8.15.

The appellation Côtes du Rhône Villages Nyons obviously means we're in wine territory, but if I say to a French person I live in Nyons the response is inevitably "ah, le pays de l'olive" - olive country. Nyons was, after all, the first place in France to be given an AOC for its olives and olive oil.

13/10/2024

Domaine Maby, Lirac "Casta Diva" 2023

Grenache blanc and viognier, fermented and aged in new wood. No-one would call it shy and retiring but I love its unapologetic nature. It celebrates its opulence without being in the slightest bit clumsy. Rather delicious.

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