Cave de Cairanne Grand Reserve Cru Cairanne

From the French “Co-Op Winery of the Year” winner for 2024 comes this extremely well priced Grand Reserve Cru Cairanne red from the Rhone Valley.

This is Cave de Cairanne – a co-operative since 1929 and now pool together 122 winegrowers across 1200 hectares of vines including 170 hectares of prestigious “Cru Cairanne” which is 20% of all production in that area. The winemaker is Denis Crespo from the Bordeaux region and winemaker at Cave de Cairanne since 1995.

So what is Cairanne and why is it you can usually expect to pay $40-60 a bottle for it? The wines of the Rhone Valley are split into four levels in a pyramid system with each classification having rules to ensure levels of quality.

From the entry level “Cotes du Rhone AOC” (about 50% of the total Rhone valley production) to “Cotes du Rhone Villages AOC” all the way to the top “Crus”. There are 17 Crus in the Rhone Valley including Châteauneuf-du-Pape, Côte-Rôtie, Crozes-Hermitage, Saint-Joseph and Cairanne which has been given Cru status since 2016.

As Wine Anorak puts its – “Cairanne, another rising star cru in the Rhône…There’s been a lot of interest in the Rhône cru of Cairanne recently. It’s one of the crus capable of making wines with freshness and definition in a warm climate”

This Grand Reserve Cru is a blend of Grenache (50%), Syrah (30%) and Mourvedre (20%) from vineyards north of the village of Cairanne with an average vine age of 25-40 years old.

A Gold medal winner and a whopping 96/100 at the Decanter World Wine Awards – the judge said “Soft, ripe black forest compote nose; nice concentration of fruit on the palate. Good weight. Really well balanced in terms of fruit, acidity and tannin; supple and silky. Lots of juicy, succulent blackberry fruit flavours. Superb length. Some nice complexity coming through too. Dangerously drinkable! Impressive”