Domaine Gramiller 'Pruine' Cotes du Rhone 2025

Wines of the Côtes du Rhône have a stigma in the UK of being big, meaty bastards with big alcohol and sunshine. This wine is the antithesis of that. Soft and unoaked, bursting with blueberry fruit and baked plum, dusted with cinnamon and lifted by violets and lavender. The palate is gloriously juicy with smooth, chocolatey tannins and a touch of dried orange zest. Pure class in the glass - I'll have another thanks the very reasonable 12.5% ABV. If roast pork is on the menu, this wine is a dream pairing. 

Frédéric Julien was Vice-President of the Cooperative Cellar of Rasteau before striking out alone in 2017, and everything about his wines suggests that was exactly the right call.

His domaine takes its name from Gramiller, a lieu-dit within the Rasteau AOC where a patchwork of soils gives the wines their distinct character. With 15 hectares spread across five sites, Frédéric has had twenty years of vine-growing to refine his thinking, and that thinking has always pointed in one direction: farm with nature, not against it. The estate has been organic from the outset, and the winemaking follows the same philosophy. Minimal SO2 at bottling for the estate wines; none at all for the Cuvées Natures.

The results speak for themselves. These are wines of real precision and purity, where the fruit does the talking and there's nothing in the way to muddy the message. If you've ever been sceptical about natural wine, the no-added-SO2 cuvées are the kind of thing that quietly dismantles those reservations. Frederic is the real deal.