Mountain Cool from Gigondas, and Soave’s Streamlined Stunners: Weekly Tasting Report (April 17-23)

This year during their Rhone tour, Senior Editor Stuart Pigott and Tasting Manager Kevin Davy took a couple of days to explore the appellation of Gigondas, which lies a short drive from the more famous Chateauneuf-du-Pape in the south of the region.

It’s an exciting appellation, and that begins with the fact that Gigondas is the most dramatic wine landscape in the Southern Rhone thanks to the towering limestone cliffs called Les Dentelles de Montmirail. And if you see them from the air, as Stuart and Kevin were able to do from a light aircraft organized by the Pierre Amadieu winery, they look like a series of parallel rows of teeth with forests and vineyards between them.

“A generation ago, the producers of Gigondas took the decision not to cut down the forests and plant more vineyards,” said Marc-Pierre Amadieu of Pierre Amadieu. “And it was the right path, because we were able to preserve this extraordinary landscape and double the wine prices within a generation.”

That’s clearly a success story, but good Gigondas is still a bargain compared with the wines of its more famous neighbor. This is partly the result of history. Chateauneuf-du-Pape was France’s first legally recognized appellation for wine back in 1936, whereas Gigondas only became an independent appellation in 1971.

One reason for this is the heterogeneous character of the wines. The vineyards on the gentle slopes below the village lie on deep alluvial soils that give powerful and muscular wines. The not yet released Domaine Santa Duc Gigondas Les Hautes Garrigues 2022 is a stunningly dark and meaty example of this type, with stacks of spice. It is a 50-50 cuvee of grenache and mourvedre, which is a rather typical blend for the appellation.

On the other hand, you have wines like Les Pallières Gigondas Terrasses du Diable 2021 from higher-altitude sites with rock limestone soil that have a mountain coolness and crisp tannins. The unreleased Domaine Santa Duc Gigondas Clos Derrière Vieille 2022 is also an astonishingly elegant example of this style. You won’t find anything like them from Chateauneuf!

That’s just a basic guide, and many of the most spectacular wines plow their own furrow. That certainly applies to the Domaine des Bosquets Gigondas Le Regard Loin 2020, which not only has terrific concentration, but also focus and energy. It is currently one of very few Gigondas wines with three-figure prices. More look sure to follow this lead, so we recommend that if you love full-bodied and spicy reds this is a good moment to buy.

No less original is the Pierre Amadieu Gigondas Le Pas de L’Aigle 2021 with its incredibly intense wild blackberry and herb character. It has a lot of power and also very chalky tannins that remind us of the stony soil in the very high-altitude vineyards (almost 500 meters above sea level) where it is grown. Here is further proof that 2021 gave some excellent wines in Gigondas. Check out the tasting notes below for more of them.

SOAVE'S STREAMLINED STUNNERS

Senior Editor Ned Goodwin MW is coming to the end of an extensive journey through Veneto, the largest region in Italy on volume terms, and his tastings affirm that when it comes to white wine, few subregions impress more than Soave.

Like elsewhere throughout the country, however, Soave suffered from inclement bouts of rain and subsequent mildew in 2023, and yet the wines from the vintage are perhaps still fresher than the more phenolic 2022s, a year that Meri Tessari of top producer Suavia described as “a furnace.”

Producers higher up on Soave’s volcanic screes, buffered with a smattering of limestone here and there, were more fortunate in both vintages. Altitude serves to bestow freshness and healthier fruit, fundamentals with which to craft superior wines – ones that are streamlined, of moderate alcohol and healthy pH, even in vintages as warm as the recent ones.

While top producers including Suavia, Pieropan, Inama and Gini were all on form, relative newcomer Tenuta Sant'Antonio offers something a bit different from the regional creed of reductive handling, stone fruit accents and a grind of white pepper. For those seeking a more herbal spectrum of complexity that evokes the snow-capped mountains visible from the region at this time of year, look no further. Tenuta Sant'Antonio’s Soave Vecchie Vigne 2021 is a stunning wine, showcasing the tensile nature of a cooler year and the textural amplitude that a more controlled, oxidative approach confers.

Yet it was Gini’s Recioto di Soave Renobilis 2016 that blew Ned’s mind. This is a wine that is crafted solely with botrytized fruit, bucking the appassimento tradition of the region. Like the Mosel’s finest sweet wines, this is a featherweight with a stream of acidity sweeping any stray sweetness into a wisp of palpable dryness and scintillating length.

PUNCHING ABOVE ITS WEIGHT

The spotlight on the South American wines we tasted over the past week fell on the exciting, great-value El Enemigo line of wines made by one of the top producers in Mendoza, Bodega y Viñedos Aleanna. James and Senior editor Zekun Shuai have always been keen on Alejandro Vigil and Adrianna Catena’s offerings, especially their chardonnays, which often find a place on our annual Top 100 Value Wines list. But whether it’s their chardonnay and semillon whites or their malbec and cabernet franc reds, all of Aleanna’s wines embody Mendoza’s virtues of exceptional value and consistency.

For the 2022 vintage, El Enemigo Chardonnay Mendoza continues to be a paragon of unwavering quality, showing purity of fruit, minerality, bracing saltiness and just a touch of spice and pastries derived from the French oak puncheon. With its full-bodied broadness, tension, intense flavors, and bright acidity, this Gualtallary chardonnay, grown at an elevation exceeding 1,400 meters, easily rivals the world’s finest. The delicate veil of flor in the puncheons, under which the wine is aged, imparts additional briny saltiness and spices to the enticing aromas and flavors. And with a price tag at around $30, this bottle punches way above the belt in its quality/value class.

However, if you’re hunting for the same steely, hyper-minerality that usually comes with Mendoza’s diversity of white wines but are looking for something besides chardonnay, sauvignon blanc or semillon, then the second vintage of El Enemigo’s old-vine chenin blanc from 2022 could be what you’re looking for. It’s a unique chenin, completely devoid of oak influence, bursting with terroir hints of salinity and minerality that transport you to the limestone clay soils where the 60-year-old vines thrive.

“I have been making five vintages of chenin, I don’t want to release it until it makes me think of the Chablis from the old time,” said Vigil, winemaker of Bodega Aleanna and Catena Zapata, who was recently re-elected as the president of Wines of Argentina. 

The wine comes from a five-hectare vineyard that according to Vigil belonged to his neighbor, who was just about to abandon the chenin blanc vines. When it hits the palate, its razor-sharp acidity cuts through, unveiling a mid-palate that is resolutely austere, steely and linear. Its transparency, elegance and purity mimic that of mineral water despite its intensity, while its delicious, uncompromising austerity is showcased through its elevated levels of acidity, low pH and low alcohol content.

– Reporting contributed by Stuart Pigott, Ned Goodwin MW and Zekun Shuai

The list of wines below is comprised of bottles tasted and rated during the past week by James Suckling and the other tasters at JamesSuckling.com. They include many latest releases not yet available on the market, but which will be available soon. Some will be included in upcoming tasting reports.

Note: You can sort the wines below by country, vintage, score and alphabetically by winery name. You can also search for specific wines in the search bar.