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Domaine des Garriguettes, Cotes du Rhone Blanc, Fleur de Lune, 2022

From approximately 50% Clairette, 40% Grenache Blanc and 10% Viognier, with about 20% of the wine rounded in old oak barrels, this is a fresh and vibrant white Côtes de Rhône. It charms with a pretty scent of white flowers and then opens out into an exotically fruited cocktail of ripe citrus and pineapple. Note the lowish (12.5%) alcohol level: although 2022 saw a hot and dry summer, the wines here were refreshed by rain on the 15th of August and the start of September - and it's clear that bio-dynamic viticulture, as practiced here, brings a better balance to the wines. Lots of zip and mildly saline. A winner. Now-2025

Lying just to the east of Avignon is the “other” Châteauneuf – the village of Châteauneuf-de-Gadagne which in large part shares a similar terroir to its more famous and much larger appellation to the north, i.e. the vineyards are covered with rounded pudding stones, weathered deposits from the Rhône river. It’s a historic terroir, the wines respected for centuries. 

Young Sébastien Clement now runs the domaine, having gained experience in the northern Rhône, Portugal and Australia. He immediately converted to organic and bio-dynamic viticulture.  Matt Walls, author of the Wines of the Rhône (published in 2021) thinks that “In time, this could be the domaine that finally puts Gadagne on the map”.