Asheville's Best Free Wine Tasting!

Delicious Grenache-Based Wines of Southern France

The best way to learn about wine is to taste it, and we conduct one of Asheville’s Best Free Wine Tastings every Saturday from 2 to 5. This week, it’s a Grenache Lovers dream tasting featuring a quartet of Grenache-based wines from the Rhone Valley and the Roussillon region of Southern France. As you can see in the picture above, Grenache can grow where many other things can’t and it can keep growing for a long time. Surprisingly, the resulting wines don’t taste nearly as “rough” as these vineyards look. The soul of Southern French wine(s), it comes in three different colors too! We’ll taste them all and we’ll tell you more than you ever wanted to know about one of the most prolific grape varieties on the planet. All you have to do is stop by!

First up, the 2013 Les Vignerons St. Hilaire D’Ozilhan Cotes du Rhone Blanc “Prestige Cuvée” has a very long and hard to pronounce name, but there’s nothing complicated about the wines . Mainly Grenache Blanc, with smaller amounts of Viognier, Roussanne and Clairette, it’s a pretty, aromatic white wine laced with white peach, golden apple and delicate floral notes. The second white, the 2012 Les Vignes de Bila-Haut Blanc is a blend of Grenache Blanc, Grenache Gris and Macabeu. Fuller, richer and more powerful than the first white, it offers up notes of peach, green fig, fennel and a saline edged minerality typically encountered in much more expensive wines.

Moving on to the reds, the 2011 Domaine de Couron Cotes du Rhone is 60% Grenache and 40% Syrah from vineyards approaching 50 years of age. A classic, medium bodied, bistro-styled red, it displays ripe berry fruits along with notions of roasted herb, pepper and earth. To finish up, the 2012 Les Vignes de Bila Haut Rouge is a tank aged blend of Grenache, Syrah and Carignan. Boasting deep aromas of blackberry, black cherry and peppery/spicy/herbal stuff, it’s a ton of wine for the money. That’s all folks, the only left for you to do is stop by and “get your Grenache on.”

Tasting wines are 10% off by the bottle, 15% off when you mix any six of them and 20% off if you mix twelve!

The Wines
Prices range from $11 to $17

1. 2013 Les Vignerons St. Hilaire D’Ozilhan Cotes du Rhone Blanc
(Southern Rhone Valley, France)

2. 2012 Les Vignes de Bila-Haut Blanc
(Cotes du Roussillon, France)

3. 2011 Domaine de Couron Cotes du Rhone
(Southern Rhone Valley, France)

4. 2012 Les Vignes de Bila-Haut Rouge
(Cotes du Roussillon, France)