Weekly Winedown #11 Chapoutier Cotes Du Rhone Villages

Welcome to the Weekly Winedown. Each week I selflessly drink wine for you and offer a review.
Please don’t expect anything professional, I consume a lot of wine but I’m no pro.

The only real ‘rule’ I’m putting in place is that the wine is to be under £8 a bottle. #keepitclassy.

So, after the fiasco last week we’re back on a Friday. Order is restored and all is good and proper once again.
Well, almost.

This week I’m winging it. This week I’m not in control. It’s making me a bit twitchy!

My parents are visiting and so the wine has been chosen by my mum.
A lady who doesn’t drink wine at all and whose last wine recommendation to me was the Echo Falls fruit fusion ‘wines’. Whoever made them up? They were just proper rank. Worse than cherry Lambrini, and that’s going some. Actually, I confess I used to rather enjoy cherry Lambrini in the past. Saying that I also drank Carling so I was a woman of little taste.

I digress, mum chose the wine and I am going to drink it.
Winner! Hopefully.

Today we are I am drinking Chapoutier Cotes Du Rhone Villages, a French red. Bingo mother! We ALL know I love a French red so this is bound to please me. 

Let’s take a look at the label…It’s elegant and simple, white with a black font not one my eye would draw to usually BUT it’s got braille on. Yes, the wine label is also done in braille. I love an inclusive vino!
And so, let us trot on…

Just a point. As much as they cater for the blind with the braille, they don’t give a damn about us middle aged with terrible eyesight. the print is miniscule!

The Blurb

“…founded in 1808, cultivates its vines respecting the balance of nature. This gives full expression to the complexity of the soil and to the grape variety. With gastronomy in mind, our aim is to produce wine which will combine perfectly with food.”

The blurb is a bit, ummm, pretentious. Maybe because it’s directly translated from French. Maybe in French it’s poetic and and emotive but in English. Well. It’s complex mud. I had no idea what to expect with the smell or the taste.

Here I’d normally delve into the smells and tastes of the wine but as I was about to start recording my mum presented me with a box that I “wasn’t allowed to open until I’d opened the wine and read the label. She had chosen the wine specifically because it went with ‘food’. I was expecting a box of dog biscuits or something hilarious like that but it was a box of macarons. Home made. For me.

Macarons are my favourite, I got giddy and neglected my duty as teller of the wine. Sorry.

The scent started jammy and ended earthy.
The flavour is bitter berries but with a smooth finish. No spices to be found.

I’ve since eaten a macaron and can confirm that the wine goes with food.

This was a week that started with a forgotten lunch box for a school trip, a head injury and trip to A&E. Ended with being late to school (again) and a declaration of unfairness on me banning all the things Aoife loves (cartwheeling in the house – she can’t even cartwheel). And had a middle of “I can count to 200 in 2s, shall I show you?”. Friday evening couldn’t come soon enough.