Château d'Aigueville Côtes du Rhône 2023

This white Côtes du Rhône from Château d’Aigueville comes from the Massif d’Uchaux, in the north of the Vaucluse, in the heart of the southern Rhône Valley. Amid slopes, pine forests, olive trees and garrigue, the vineyard lies mostly on a plateau of clay-limestone and sandstone soils covered with rounded pebbles, comparable to the neighbouring terroirs of Châteauneuf-du-Pape. The Mediterranean climate, very sunny and cooled by the wind, favours healthy grapes.

Certified organic, the vines are 40 years old on average. The blend brings together Clairette, Viognier, Grenache Blanc and Bourboulenc. The wine is aged entirely in concrete tanks, with regular bâtonnage on the lees, which gives it texture while preserving the freshness, tension and minerality sought for this cuvée.

This wine reveals notes of white flowers, apricot, white peach, pineapple, passion fruit, lime, aniseed and flint. Beneath a pale yellow colour, the nose blends floral notes and ripe fruit, lifted by an exotic touch. The palate is both broad and fresh, tautened by lovely minerality, before a tangy citrus finish.

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.