Western Living Magazine
Kitchen Infinity Atelier
Design Crush: A Sustainable, Stylish New HQ for Pyrrha in Vancouver
An 8,000-Square-Foot Calgary Home Inspired by High Fashion—and Plenty of Drama
Recipe: The Perfect Blueberry Scones for Springtime
The Only Irish Coffee Recipe You’ll Ever Need
Protected: Recipe: The Ultimate Salted Chocolate Chip Cookies
I Had the Best Nap of My Life in an Anti-Gravity Pod
Editors’ Picks: The Best Trips We Took in 2022
Victoria Might Just Be the Perfect Pre-New Year’s Getaway
Sleep Tight, Whatever Your Size: This Mattress Company Embraces All Body Types
The Future of Beauty: How One Medical Aesthetics Clinic is Changing the Game
Ikea’s New Marimekko Collection Just Launched in Stores—Here Are Our Favourite Pieces
What It’s Like to Win a Designers of the Year Award
Submissions Now Open! Enter Western Living’s 2023 Designers of the Year Awards
Introducing Western Living’s 2022 Designers of the Year Award Winners
This wine is complexbut it isn't a show-off about it.
Of France’s three great red wine regions, one is prohibitively expensive (Bordeaux), one makes Bordeaux look cheap (Burgundy) and one is the Rhône. The irony is that for the majority of the wine-drinking public, it’s the wines of the Rhône, with their fruit-forward profile and full body, that are the most obviously pleasing. And while there’s plenty of trophy wines to be had in the region (Guigal’s single-vineyard wines run about $400 per bottle), for the most part, finding a decently priced bottle is a snap.
The key to understanding the Rhône is to divide it into north and south. The north is the spiritual home of the syrah grape (Côte-Rôtie and Hermitage being the two most famous sub-regions) and viognier (with Condrieu being that grape’s greatest expression). The south is a little more complicated, with Châteauneuf-du-Pape and its up to 19 component grape varieties reigning supreme (but of the 19, you need to know grenache, carignan, mourvèdre, cinsault and syrah). As a broad rule, the north is more expensive and refined and the south more gregarious and accessible (and boozy), but both are far more accessible than the aforementioned fancy-pants regions. A bottle like Château de Montfaucon is a great example: the wine is complex enough—cherries and raspberries dominate—but not a show-off about it. It’s aged in concrete so it has a great juiciness and minerality and a lingering aroma of violets. All this at what’s become the entry-point price for wines from the Okanagan? A Gallic no-brainer.
Are you over 18 years of age?