Domaine la Montagnette – Terre de mistral / Cuvée Des Galets    

Cotes du Rhone

There are over 100,000 acres of vineyards producing vast volumes of Cotes du Rhone. This doesn’t make it easy to generalize. Cotes du Rhone can be anything from almost Beaujolais to almost Chateauneuf-du-Pape. As I don’t like Beau-jolais and am partial to Chateauneuf-du-Pape, I look for Cotes du Rhone that tastes like the latter.

Estezargues - the Village

This is west of the Rhone in the Gard, next to Costieres de Nimes. There are 271 inhabitants and 791 acres of vines. This corner of the Cotes du Rhone has always had a good reputation and a few years ago part of the vineyards were upgraded to ‘Cotes du Rhone - Villages’. Many of the best parcels are ranged on plateaux atop ridgelines. The “soil” is mostly large rounded stones a lot like those that are famous in Chateauneuf-du-Pape. These ridgetop vineyards are pretty spectacular and can yield very fine and distinctive wines.

Estezargues – the Coop

The Estezargues Coop was founded in 1965. In the early ‘80’s it became a pioneer in the new style of wine Coops in Europe. In the past Coops existed merely to provide a market for member’s grapes. Winemaking equipment was pretty rudimentary and everybody’s grapes went into one big vat. The resulting wines were mostly sold in bulk at low prices to the big negociants.

The new-style Coops are more like jointly owned wineries than traditional Coops. Estezargues has small cooperage. Every lot of every member’s wine can be vinified and stored separately. Individual growers’ wines are Estate Bottled. Lesser lots are blended and sold under Coop labels but the Coop’s primary purpose is to provide members with a shared modern, high quality facility, complete with winemaker.

“Mister Nice”

That winemaker from the early ‘80’s until a few years ago was Jean-François Nicq. The first time I met him, I thought his name was Nice. I found this humorous as he is a really dour perfectionist, constantly finding tiny details wrong and not resting until they are fixed. This didn’t make him easy to work with, but the quality of the wines coming from Estezargues has been spectacular.

Mr. Nice has since moved on to his own Estate. His longtime assistant Denis Deschamps is now in charge. He shares Mr. Nice’s quality standards but fortunately not his temperament, so working with Estezargues has gotten easier. Today six sizeable estates make their wine at Estezargues and five of these bottle under their own names. These bottlings are reserved for their best wines. Other lots are blended and bottled together under Coop labels.

Domaine la Montagnette

The six estates own an impressive average of over 100 acres each. Montagnette is typical. Jean-Marie & Marie-Noelle Granier are profoundly traditional growers. Grenache has typically been the varietal of choice here. Most of it is planted on the high plateaux, head-pruned for manual as opposed to mechanical harvest. Average vine age is over 30 years, but the younger parcels go into the Coop bottlings. Vine age for the Grenache used in the bottled Cotes du Rhone is over 40 years!

Some of Granier’s vineyards are entitled to the Cotes du Rhone - Villages designation, but I don’t find the wines from these parcels any better. Most of the ‘Villages’ parcels are from younger vines. As these vines mature, I might change my mind.

Three years ago Jean-Marie’s son Jean Laurent Grenier got his winemaking degree at Montpellier. After a couple of years working in Languedoc, he has come home to help with the family vineyards, dividing his time between Montagnette and assisting Denis Deschamps at Estezargues.

The Wines

Domaine la Montagnette Cotes du Rhone is at the center of the Domaine’s production and HPS’ imports. Until the ’04 vintage, it has always been driven by Grenache, always at least 60% to as much as 85% of the blend. However early in ’04 the Graniers purchased a parcel of old vine Cinsault on a plateau adjoining their primary Grenache vineyard. I was stunned when I tasted it pure from cuve in December. The entire cuve went into the blend of the ’04 Montagnette. For the first time, Grenache does not form the majority of the blend. The ’04 is 38% Grenache, 32% Syrah, 25% Cinsault and 5% Mourvedre. It is the best wine I’ve ever had from Montagnette.

Terre de Mistral – This new label replaces the wine previously sold as ‘Terra Vitis’. It is used on a Cotes du Rhone from Montagnette and the other growers. The Coop, not Montagnette, owns the label.

There is a vast range of practice between industrial and organic agriculture. Terra Vitis is a growers organization as close to organic as possible without the official title. The goal is sustainable agriculture (the French call it ‘lutte raisonnee’, ‘logical fight’). Chemicals are not banned but discouraged. For example, there are 172 pesticides authorized for use in France. Terra Vitis permits only 3 of these. All 3 are proven to decompose within 2 weeks and treatment is not permitted within 6 weeks of harvest.

In the fine but unusual ’04 vintage, yields were high but the harvest was late with superb ripeness. Mourvedre, occasionally a problem child in Estezargues, excelled. The ’04 blend is 52% Grenache, 25% Carignan, 13% Mourvedre and 10% Syrah.

Cuvee des Galets is again a Coop label but in this case the large majority of the wine comes from Montagnette. Much of it is harvested from a very old parcel of Carignan and Cinsault planted on low, marshy ground not entitled to Appellation, In the bad old days of phylloxera, a stream would be diverted over the vines in winter to kill the bugs. The balance of this bottling is mostly Montagnette’s younger vine Grenache. The ’04 blend is about 40% Grenache, 40% Carignan and 20% Cinsault. As the old parcel is a mixed planting, percentages can’t be exact.