Wine has been made in Provence since the Greeks settled Marseille, before the Romans arrived.
The greatest part of provençale wines are part of the Côtes du Rhône appellation. This appellation is a perfect example of the French system of wine classification – interesting, and a bit mental.
The appellation is divided into four quality levels:
1. AOC Côtes du Rhône
2. AOC Côtes du Rhône Villages
3. Next up are 18 villages which are allowed to add their village name to the AOC Côtes du Rhône label.
4. At the top of the tree are the 17 Crus who don’t have to include AOC Côtes du Rhône, the name of the village is enough, most famously Chateauneuf du Pape.
The rules differ wildly – south of Montelimar there’s a minimum of 40% grenache grapes. Throughout the whole region all the reds must contain a minimum of 15% of Syrah and / or Mourvedre. In the most famous Provence appellation of all, Chateauneuf du Pape, they are allowed to grow 18 varieties of grape, but after the harvest they have to throw 5% of the crop away.
If you want to understand French wines, first of all you have to accept that the rules are at the same time a bit sensible, and just a little bit lunatic.
Chateauneuf du Pape is the Prince amongst these wines, but in one vineyard we’ll learn how the A6 motorway cut a vineyard in two, creating an AOC Chateauneuf du Pape, and a Vin de France (the new name for vin de table – basically there is no lower classification of wine in France – except maybe the French would say “all foreign wines”!). But we’ll find out just how stunning his vins de France are.
These used to be high quality wines that were virtually unheard of (outside France) and therefore reasonably price. Unfortunately, they were a bit too good to remain a secret, and as their reputation grows, so does their price. But nothing like Chateauneuf du Pape. I always think choosing these wines shows a bit of nous on the part of the imbiber, and we’ll cycle through them on the Wednesday and Thursday of our new tour.