Yes We Cairanne

A recent trip to France convinced me that, ironically, the best place to drink French wine nowadays is in California.

Let me give you an example: a red wine from Cairanne in the Southern Rhône, a 2007 Côte du Rhône Villages from Domaine Catherine le Goeuil, which I bought at Kermit Lynch Wines in Berkeley last week for $23.

I love this Cairanne. It’s a mouthful of ripe red plums, earth, and that brambly Southern Rhone “garrigue” flavor. It’s got delicious aromas of framboise, blueberry compote, Asian spices, and licorice. It’s totally dry but tastes sweet on the palate, enough to go *great* with the BBQ sandwich I am now enjoying. Clean, fresh, slightly soft mouthfeel, though not lacking in heft. I haven’t enjoyed an under-$25 bottle of wine this much in a long time.

My guess as to why I’m loving this wine so much is that Lynch, Madame Le Goeuil’s importer, has taken the time to search her out (she’s from a lesser-known village in the Rhône), promote her methods (she’s organic and low-tech in the cellar), and do a bottling with his own name on the label.

In contrast, during my recent trip to France, I made a guess that within France itself, wine buyers (especially at restaurants) are paying less and less attention to the particulars of the craft at the wineries they buy from, and no attention at all to new wineries in semi-anonymous regions.

So all you can order from, say, Guy Savoy, is so-so wine from a recognizable name, but nothing startlingly good from people and places you’ve never heard of.

Cairanne sounds guy-RAN but starting with a k sound. As for Catherine’s last name, good luck! I’d say “luh-goo-EEY.” Let me know if I’m way off.