An important part of being a wine merchant is to provide wines for any situation and budget. It’s easy enough to cut and paste scores for hot items. We do that kind of thing as well as anyone. But finding that compelling, angst-free, tasty well priced go to is equally exciting to us. We are always on the hunt for ‘the deal’ be that catching a price reduction or timing a purchase just right. But there are also wines out there that simply overdeliver all the time. Cotes du Rhone is one of those categories. Find a good guy in a good vintage and you can get compelling wines for a song.
This piece is about Domaine la Manarine, a delicious Cote du Rhone that presents of mouthful of delightful, spicy Grenache fruit for a song. It’s been a while but that had more to do with timing with the wholesaler. We’ve known the wine for a long time as a prior incarnation was a wine-of-the-month on the front page of one of our old printed newsletters back at the old location.
Domaine la Manarine was created by Gilles Gasq in April 2001. The winery and majority of his vineyards are located within the commune of Travaillan, on a splendid plateau northeast of Orange in the southern Rhone. Gilles is a talented vigneron who has honed his skills working as an assistant to Paul Jeune, the proprietor of the highly respected Domaine Monpertuis in Chateauneuf-du-Pape. Expanding his holdings each year, Domaine La Manarine now encompasses 33 hectares of vineyards situated largely on what is known as the “Le Plan de Dieu”.
This area, covered in large, round stones called galets is a happy place for Grenache. The standard bearer of the domaine is the Côtes du Rhône Rouge produced from the younger (but not young) vines (average 35 years old) of the estate. This wine is 100% Grenache and produces a classically spicy, full-bodied wine that speaks clearly of the “garrigue” of the region. The grapes are destemmed before the fermentation and the cuvaison is on the order of three weeks duration. The wine is bottled without filtration after twenty to twenty-four months of “élevage”.
The Manarine Côtes du Rhône 2020 is an essential wine in this category. The 2020 is a punchier, juicier version of this wine. The Grenache follows the path of a lot of the 2020s with a big, spicy, slightly garrigue-y (scents of fresh wild herbs) mouthful of kirsch and red currant fruit. Ample, bright, flavorful, this is a display of bright, unfettered, character-filled fruit that tastes of its origins. It’s a steal at $13.98!
We don’t have any scores and highlights on Manarine simply because writers rarely talk about little wines like this. But this wine’s boisterous fruit and versatility make it a great choice with a wide variety of dishes and everyone needs a delicious and economic choice to open without too much thinking. Here you go.