Deeper colour. Ripe scents, with a suggestion of preserved fruits and vanilla. Bittersweet, raspberry and blackberry palate, with some genuine depth and surprising length for the money.  Now-2010

Product Code: ESZ208

From the land of just ten vignerons, co-operative winemaker Denis Deschamps crafts wines from shared grapes - the great value cuvées such as this Côtes du Rhône - and also makes wines for the different, privately owned domaines under their own names. All wines are bottled unfiltered, sometimes lending a slightly hazy look, but, more important, a satisfying density and mouthfeel.

With every visit to this mini co-operative - hugely admired within France - in a small village in the Gard, just west of Avignon, we seem to add another of their wines. This year it’s Domaine de Pierredon’s Côtes du Rhône Villages, unusual (and strikingly classy) in that it is a blend of halves of Grenache and Mourvèdre. Buy this for drinking now and for keeping a year or two - it tastes much grander than its appellation implies.

Otherwise we offer: the latest vintage of Les Galets, a cheerful blend of Grenache, Cinsaut and Syrah which makes a really honest, daily drinking wine, which is, if anything, even better than the 2007; the Terra Vitis Côtes du Rhône, from grapes farmed by sustainable, minimal intervention farming discipline, half way to organic viticulture, practiced by five members of the co-operative; and a regular favourite, Jean-Marie Granier’s wine from the plateau at Signargues based on 70% Grenache and 20% Syrah.