Domaine Boutinot Rhone Les Coteaux Cotes du Rhone Villages 2022 Rhone, France
Common practice in the Côtes du Rhône is to bottle the best cuvées as a single, named, village wine and the rest as more basic Côtes du 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 and Séguret. Boutinot's Côtes du Rhône Villages 'Les Coteaux' is therefore a selection of the best Grenache Noir and Syrah from some of the 17 named Côtes du Rhône Villages. We source wine from a number of growers with exceptional terroir and so have the flexibility to select only the very best fruit each vintage (rejecting parcels which do not meet our high standards). Mostly unoaked, a small proportion (15%) is part-aged for up to 20 months in a few new, but mostly older, oak barrels to bring depth and subtle notes of complexity.
80% Grenache Noir, 20% Syrah. Typical red berry, brambly fruit underpinned by subtle oaky nuances, lovely sweet spice, warm star anise with a touch of cinnamon. The flavours are densely packed, layer upon layer of primary red fruit are refined by smooth oaky subtleties bound up in a finely woven structure. Flattering as these words are, they just don’t do this wine justice as the nose is so very alluring and attractive that you can’t wait to taste it!... but you resist because you want more of these lush aromas to wash over you. When you finally take your nose out of the glass and sip and swirl this lovely nectar, the same lusciousness and velvety characters come through on the palate. In the long finish the intensity of the vintage shines as the wine ‘grows’ in the glass. ‘Les Coteaux’ is such a well made and ‘together’ wine. It is made to relish on release but the finely grained tannins are likely to lend longevity so it could be well worth squirreling some away!
