Richaud Marcel Cotes du Rhone 'Les Garrigues' 2024

Grape Varietal: Grenache, Syrah, Carignan, Counoise & Mourvèdre

Country: France

Region: Côtes du Rhône, Cairanne

The Wine: Marcel Richaud is the fifth generation of his family at the domaine in Cairanne, who took over in 1974 at the age of twenty and immediately committed to bottling his own wine rather than selling to the cooperative — a defiant act at the time. Widely regarded as a founding figure of natural winemaking in the southern Rhône, he farms organically, ferments with indigenous yeasts, neither fines nor filters, and uses only a trace of sulfur at bottling (1.5 g/hl).

Now joined by his children Claire, Thomas, and Edith, the domaine covers 80 hectares. Les Garrigues — the renamed successor to the longtime cuvée Terre de Galets — draws from the domaine's warmest and driest parcels on the Garrigues, Carré, Canarde, and Truffières terroirs: red clay, limestone, and rounded galets roulés that absorb heat through the day and radiate it back to the vines at night.

The blend is 50% Grenache, 20% Syrah, 20% Carignan, 5% Counoise, and 5% Mourvèdre, from vines averaging 30 years old, aged 10 months in concrete vat with no inputs beyond that minimal sulfur at bottling.

The 2024 Les Garrigues is a generous, sun-warmed Côtes du Rhône with more freshness than its pedigree might suggest. It opens with aromas of jammy red fruit, black olive, anise, and the dry herbal scrub that gives the cuvée its name. On the palate it is round and juicy with ample, silky tannins, a slightly licorice-edged finish, and the kind of easy, honest depth that makes you pour a second glass before finishing the first.

Pairing: Grilled lamb merguez with harissa and flatbread, a slow-cooked daube of beef with olives and orange peel, tapenade and roasted peppers on toasted sourdough, or a long Provençal dinner eaten outside in the last of the summer warmth with the garrigue still in the air.