Here’s the full tasting note for...

Domaine des Garriguettes, Cotes du Rhone Blanc, Fleur de Lune, 2023

From approximately 50% Clairette, 30% Grenache Blanc and 20% Viognier, with about 20% of the wine rounded in old oak barrels, this is a fresh and vibrant white Côtes de Rhône. 10% of the grapes were picked early to ensure maximu freshness in the wine. This really shows through. It is long and textured. With vibrant grapefruit  and stone fruit notes. There is something moresihly saline too in the wine. A very classy wine. Now - 2026

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”.