2019 La Grand Comtadine Gigondas 750 ml

When you scan Wine Enthusiast’s top-scoring Rhône wines from the 2019 vintage, you’ll see the usual: Châteauneuf-du-Pape icons, lofty scores, prices that push into the triple digits. 

But look closely, and you’ll see La Grand Comtadine Gigondas. It’s an outlier. It’s an interloper. It’s the one that proves the quality gap between Châteauneuf and Gigondas has been reduced to a hairline crack. 

La Grand Comtadine began in a vineyard at the foot of the steep Dentelles de Montmirail range, a pocket of terroir Wine Advocate called “essentially in its own little microclimate.” Sheltered from the powerful and chilly mistral wind by towering granite cliffs that form a natural amphitheater, the vineyard lies on south-facing slopes that bask in sunlight, and at a higher elevation than much of the region, affording cold temperatures at night that help the grapes retain a bracing acidity.

Denis Cheron is the man who made this wine possible. A native of Burgundy, he was no stranger to world-class vineyards—but his move to the Rhône in the 1960s was a shocking bet on himself and the untapped terroir of the region, which was considered far less prestigious at the time than it is today.

Cheron’s granddaughter Elisa is the winemaker now, and she crafts La Grand Comtadine wines with finesse and balance. Her team hand-harvests the Grenache, Syrah, and Mourvèdre before sorting the berries twice. After a long fermentation in temperature-controlled tanks, the wine ages in subterranean concrete vessels for several months. 

Decades ago, Denis Cheron bet big on the potential of Gigondas. This 95-point, Editors’ Choice bottle is proof that he wagered wisely.