Gigondas 2023

The Gigondas from Domaine Les Sibu comes from one of the most renowned crus of the southern Rhône Valley, backing onto the Dentelles de Montmirail, in the Vaucluse. The family estate, based in Sablet, farms 1.75 hectares of vines there. Between the limestone of the Dentelles and the plain, under a hot, dry and windy Mediterranean climate, this powerful terroir yields wines of great concentration.

The vines, around 40 years old, are farmed organically, with yields of around 35 hectolitres per hectare. The blend brings together 70% Grenache and 30% Mourvèdre. The wine is aged for 12 months, 85% in concrete tanks and 15% in 400-litre oak demi-muids, to gain complexity while preserving the purity of the fruit.

This wine reveals notes of ripe black fruit, plum, brandied cherry, black olive, liquorice, liquorice pastilles, pepper and garrigue. Beneath a purple colour with ruby hues, the nose is deep and powerful. The palate is very broad, built on fully ripe tannins, with sustained concentration and long aromatic persistence.

The cradle of wine culture in Western Europe, France owes its first vines to the Greeks of Phocaea, who settled around Marseille some twenty-six centuries ago, before the Romans spread viticulture along the Rhône and the Garonne and as far as Champagne. In the Middle Ages, Cistercian and Benedictine monks cleared the slopes of Burgundy and patiently mapped out the climats, laying the foundations of the notion of terroir. The 19th century brought the glory of the classifications, then the disaster of phylloxera, which wiped out the vineyards before they were rebuilt on American rootstocks; the creation of the appellations d'origine contrôlée in the 1930s then set the rules that would inspire the whole world. Today, France vies every year with Italy and Spain for first place in world production by volume and remains the ultimate benchmark of the Old World, as much for its age-worthy wines as for its winemaking models. Vineyards cover almost the entire country, from the cool north of Champagne and Alsace to the Mediterranean shores of Languedoc and Provence, by way of the oceanic climates of Bordeaux, the Loire and the South-West, continental Burgundy, the steep slopes of the northern Rhône and the high-altitude valleys of Savoie and the Jura. This mosaic of soils – limestone, schist, gravel or rounded pebbles – explains the extraordinary diversity of styles. As for grape varieties, Cabernet Sauvignon and Merlot dominate Bordeaux and produce structured reds, Pinot Noir is the signature of Burgundian finesse, Syrah of the depth of the Rhône, while Grenache, Gamay, Cabernet Franc and Mourvèdre cover every register, from easy-drinking wines to wines for long ageing. Among the whites, Chardonnay, Sauvignon Blanc, Chenin, Riesling and Viognier offer expressions ranging from lively and mineral to unctuous, all the way to great sweet wines. A land of benchmarks and constant discoveries, France remains the compass for wine lovers the world over.