How one French wine region manages to keep prices steady
Grenache has a freakish ability to produce large volumes of flavorful fruit even in arid conditions.
Red Côtes-du-Rhône is consistently one of the best bargains to be found in the French wine aisle. Not only have their prices held reasonably steady over the past decade as other French regions have seen notable price increases, but their price-to-quality ratio has remained reliably high as well.
Côtes-du-Rhône is a generic regional wine appellation that covers most of France’s Rhône Valley as the river flows from Lyon to the Mediterranean. In practice though, only wines made in the stony flats of the southern Rhône are affordable enough to be sold under this name. While 21 different grapes are technically permissible in this appellation, the Grenache grape dominates, typically comprising at least 60% and up to 100% of any given red Côtes-du-Rhône.
Grenache is capable of producing excellent wine at a lower cost than most other grapes due to its freakish ability to produce large volumes of flavorful fruit even in arid conditions — vintners can rely on bumper crops to keep production costs low. The weakness of Grenache is that its grapes contain lower levels of the dark phenolic compounds in grape skins that give red wine its color and help it resist oxidative spoilage. This explains why vintners here typically blend in at least two other local grapes, Syrah and/or mourvèdre. Both are thicker-skinned varieties that deepen wine’s color and boost its antioxidant properties.
This wine from one of the region’s most historic producers features vibrant flavors of fresh blackberry and red cherry, and an appetizing spiced-meat aroma reminiscent of soppresata salami.
Ogier Côtes-du-Rhône “Artésis”
Rhône Valley, France; 14.5% ABV
PLCB Item #100048783 — on sale for $12.99 through Aug. 30 (regularly $14.99)
No alternate retail locations within 50 miles of Philadelphia, according to Wine-Searcher.com
