Alcohol: 14.5%
Grape(s): 80% Grenache, 20% Syrah
Localization: Gigondas, Rhône Valley, France
Tasting Notes: Opulent, brambly fruit jumps boldly to the fore alongside powerful purple and red florals. After minutes, it unloads with more intoxicating layers of licorice, peppercorn, cherry and raspberry liqueur, garrigue, and baking spices. There’s no shortage of depth and ripeness, but it is balanced by buoyant freshness
96 Points Wine & Spirits: Spectacular Gigondas, this wine’s red-cherry flavors soar on an arc of cool, fresh acidity. A grounding of garrigue and ferrous minerality tethers the wine to the earth, gives it a sense of continuity and quiet power, but the overall impression is of fruit at moment of peak ripeness, preserved with crystal clarity. It’s made by Anne-Marie Gaudin, who farms 27 acres in Gigondas, the vines around 45 years old and grown without any chemical inputs.
The Domain: Located in the foothills of the Montmirail Mountains, Domaine du Terme is managed by Anne-Marie Gaudin and her father Rolland, who purchased their first vines in Sablet some forty years ago. Anne-Marie began making the wines in 1987 after earning her oenology degree in Mâcon. Her father, Rolland, who has also been the mayor of Gigondas for over a decade, still consults in the vinification and viticulture process. Anne-Marie believes one must be “flexible, pragmatic, and intuitive” to make quality wine, and have a good connection to the earth. Gaudin does not use any pesticides or herbicides as a matter of course, but not necessarily because she wants to be identified with the organic movement. She simply believes that the best grapes come from the best management of the vineyard. For all her wines, Anne-Marie only adds SO2 at fermentation, then not again, not even during bottling. As a result her wines are rich, textured, and exceptionally pure.
