Boutinot “Les Coteaux” Côtes du Rhône Villages, 2018

Common practice in the Côtes du Rhône is to bottle the best cuvées as a single named Village wine and the rest as basic Rhône Villages. Boutinot's philosophy, on the other hand, is to start with the intention of making the very best Côtes du Rhône Villages possible by sourcing wine from the vineyards of named villages and enriching them with a small proportion of barrel-aged wine from Sable, Séguret and Cairanne. Boutinot Rhône 'Les Coteaux' is therefore a selection of the best Grenache Noir and Syrah from some of the 17 named Côtes du Rhône Villages. We source wine from a number of growers with exceptional terroir allowing us the flexibility to select only the very best fruit from each vintage and reject parcels which do not meet our high standards. Côtes du Rhône Villages enriched with barrels of 'classified' named Village wine from Cairanne, Sablet and Séguret. Mostly unoaked, a small proportion (20%) is part aged for 22 months in a few new but mostly older oak barrels to bring depth and subtle notes of complexity.