2018 Domaine Gassier Nostre Pais Costières de Nîmes Blanc 750 ml

We’ve long been obsessed with Domaine Gassier’s gorgeous Rhône wines for their outrageous combination of quality and value, but don’t usually have the chance to enjoy their stunning Nostre Pais Blanc on US shores. It might be a good thing that we had to wait a while, because this vintage is a stunner: 

“It way over-delivers. Don’t miss it,” said Jeb Dunnuck about the 2018 Domaine Gassier Nostre Pais Blanc, before summing up the outsized value delivered by what he calls “the reference point estate” of the appellation. 

From the soils, to the blend, to the orchard fruit flavors, this is a dead-ringer for top-flight white Châteauneuf-du-Pape. Bold, rich, and textured, it’s built to satisfy California Chardonnay lovers, white Burgundy drinkers, and anyone who loves white wines with equal parts full-bodied richness and compelling minerality.

The Gassier reminds us of Vieux Télégraphe blanc, a fascinating wine that commands more than $80 per bottle—which makes this an absurd value given its meager price tag. No wonder Dunnuck put it so simply in his 92-point review, advising readers to “snatch this up.”

For those who don’t know the gems of the Southern Rhône well, let’s go deeper. This wine is not shy in the glass: Powerful aromas of orange zest, white flowers, baked pear, and dried thyme fill the room from the first pour. We love its rich, waxy texture, which perfectly complements the flavors of quince, poached apple, and wild Provençal herbs that lead to a long, mineral-filled finish.

Robert  M. Parker Jr. himself described Domaine Gassier’s bottles as “fascinating wines [that] almost defy belief given their realistic pricing.” 

Domaine Gassier’s vineyards are marked by nearly identical gentle grades of ancient craggy vines and galets roulés—the unmistakable large rounded stones left by ancient glaciers—which are the distinguishing feature of Châteauneuf-du-Pape’s prized terroir. Those unique soils, combined with their home in the cooler southern portion of the Costières de Nîmes, allow for a perfect synthesis of richness, texture, and brightness—making it easy to mistake the wines for much more expensive Châteauneuf-du-Pape.

The Nostre Pais Blanc will have your friends thinking you spent wildly, despite its modest pricing—and a lot of that’s down to M. Gassier. Tall and soft-spoken, with graying hair and the firm handshake of a working man, he explained to us in impeccable English (his wife is American) how he's made it his life’s mission to prove that his soils can produce wines that are just as awe-inspiring as those from the Rhône’s better-known sub-zones. 

For the simple reason—and the only reason—that the Nostre Pais Blanc doesn’t hail from a high-rent district, we’re able to offer today’s bottling for a quarter of what it might go for if it had a papal crest on the bottle. Jeb Dunnuck declared that “enough can’t be said about the quality coming from Michel Gassier’s own label… these wines consistently punch well above their price point and I buy my fair share every year.”