Guillaume Gonnet La Julia Cotes du Rhone 2022

This has to be one of the bargains of the year. Guillaume Gonnet and his Australian wife Kelly has a gift for turning out Rhône reds with both soul and swagger, and La Julia shows it off in style.

A Grenache-Syrah blend from old vines just outside the strict Châteauneuf-du-Pape boundary, it’s layered, generous and unmistakably Southern Rhône.

Twisted, gnarled trunks and low-yielding vines over 40 years old provide the backbone here. Mostly bush-trained and dry-grown in Vaucluse’s sandy, stony soils, they deliver fruit with intensity and depth that was simply too good to pass up.

The winemaking is light-touch — partial de-stemming, concrete fermenters, then maturation in seasoned oak — all designed to preserve purity. What you get in the glass is a wine that sings of its place: dark fruit, violets, white pepper, savoury earth, even a hint of cured meat. It’s Rhône through and through.

We taste a lot of wine, some of the best in the world. And yet in a recent tasting at TWC, this was the one that stopped us. Regional, characterful, and so much better than the price suggests.
Everyone around the table had the same reaction: 

"Wow. This is magical. Surely that price is a typo?"

The answer is yes. It is. And it’s absolutely delicious.