2020 Domaine de Coyeux Les Jumelles Beaumes-de-Venise Rouge 750 ml

We won’t blame you if you want to keep the Beaumes-de-Venise secret to yourself. 

With high-elevation vineyards that mirror the region’s most prestigious crus, it produces some excellent expressions of the Southern Rhône style. The area might just rank among the region’s most intriguing discoveries, but we don't see this village staying overlooked for long. 

The Southern Rhône is known for concentrated, spicy, herb-inflected blends of Grenache, Syrah, and Mourvèdre, and nowhere is this style executed to more acclaim than in the villages between the Rhône river and the dramatic Dentelles de Montmirail. There’s Châteauneuf-du-Pape and Gigondas—the two most famous (and expensive) crus—and another celebrated village in Vacqueyras. Just south of the Dentelles sits Beaumes-de-Venise.

The village made its name on sweet white wines, but its dry reds can show just as much depth and concentration. From vines aged 36–65 years, the 2020 Domaine de Coyeux Les Jumelles is full-bodied yet light on its feet. Boldly aromatic with notes of raspberry jam, lavender honey, and sweet fruit on the palate, it’s so vivid and enticing that Coyeux’s owners pour it at their other venture: MICHELIN one-star La Mère Germaine.

Domaine de Coyeux sits high above the village of Beaumes-de-Venise, along the Dentelles’ jagged ridges. These mountains shelter some lower vineyards from the Mistral—the strong, cold, northerly wind that sweeps over the Rhône region—but not Coyeux. At nearly 1,000 feet up, the wind whips their 36-65-year-old vines, giving the grapes an acidic backbone to match deep concentration from the region’s near-constant sunlight. 

That dynamic push-pull is immediately apparent in Les Jumelles, the ideal introduction to a Rhône region we think every wine lover should know.