Cotes du Rhone Villages ‘Les Coteaux’

Winemaker

Eric Monnin

Appellation

Rhone Valley

Varieties

Grenache (Garnacha), Syrah (Shiraz)

Viticulture

Common practice in the Côtes du Rhône is to bottle the best cuvées as a single named Village wine and the rest as basic Rhône Villages. Boutinot’s philosophy, on the other hand, is to start with the intention of making the very best Côtes du Rhône Villages possible by sourcing wine from the vineyards of named villages and enriching them with a small proportion of barrel-aged wine from Sablet, Séguret & Cairanne. Boutinot Rhône 'Les Coteaux' is therefore a selection of the best Grenache & Syrah from some of the 17 named Côtes du Rhône Villages. Eric Monnin sources wine from a number of growers with exceptional terroir allowing him the flexibility to select only the very best fruit each vintage and reject parcels which do not meet our high standards.

Ratings & Reviews

Vineyard

The estate is focused around six plots. At the highest point on La Montée du Ventabren (altitude 300m) sit Les Six Terrasses to the left and La Pauline to the right. Both are of Grenache Noir, date from the same vintage (planted 1969), and are terraced vineyards. These old bush vine Grenache Noir with their terroir of large, heat retaining pebble stones, produce low yields of deeply concentrated grapes. They are some of the best plots in the whole of the Cairanne appellation.

At a slightly lower altitude through the estate woodland is Font Crozes. A plot that is well-exposed to the wind and well suited to Mourvèdre – like Grenache Noir a late-ripening grape. Just around the corner from Font Crozes is south/south-west facing Saint Andéol, planted with Boutinot's oldest Grenache Noir. Planting records date back as long ago as 1946. Gloriously low-yielding and generally the last rows picked.

Of course in addition to Grenache Noir the other grape variety essential to any Cairanne is Syrah. Lower down the same hillside to Les Six Terrasses and La Pauline are two plots named La Ruche. The sixth plot is a small triangle called La Truffière. La Truffière was once a truffle orchard, but a rigorous soil analysis determined that Syrah would be well suited to this terroir.

Vinification

Côtes du Rhône Villages enriched with barrels of ‘classified’ named Village wine from Cairanne, Sablet and Séguret.

Aging

Mostly unoaked, a small proportion (15%) is part aged for 22 months in a few new but mostly older oak barrels to bring depth and subtle notes of complexity.

Features

Bottle, Cork

Available Sizes (L)

0.750