Domaine de la Guicharde Cotes du Rhone 2020

In the Rhone valley, all the most famous vineyards cling to the slopes of one of the region’s many rocky hills, mountains, or massifs. The most famous of these is Chateauneuf-du-Pape, a particularly rocky plateau rising directly out of the middle of the valley, every inch covered in vines. Fifteen miles north, there is another such plateau around the village of Uchaux, more rugged and mostly forested. The Massif d’Uchaux is better known for hunting and mushroom foraging than for wine, but for those few vineyards scattered amidst the forest, the comparison to Chateauneuf is unmistakable. The same glacier that brought the iconic quartz galets to Chateauneuf left them here too, and the vineyards benefit from the same elevation, and the surrounding forest keeps the air a little cooler. One of the foremost vineyards here, Domaine de la Guicharde produces cheerfully inexpensive, biodynamically farmed Cote du Rhone that makes us wonder what would have happened if the Pope’s “new castle” was j