Tasting note
- Colour & appearance
- Medium-density purple with a youthful core — deep and clear at once.
- Nose
- A warm, southern opening: garrigue, liquorice and Provençal herbs over warm forest floor. Blackberries, black cherries, plums and sloe mingle with black tea, black cardamom and a hint of tobacco.
- Palate
- On the palate, Syrah and Carignan emerge more clearly than the Grenache: dark cherry and sloe juice, accompanied by stony notes, undergrowth, smoked meat, violet, Assam and a touch of iron. Generous in character, with fine tannins and deep minerality — southern in origin, yet taut and cool in its impression.
- Finish
- Long and mineral with a cool tone; the dark fruit lingers, accompanied by herbs and a fine salty trace.
- Terroir & origin
- The vines are rooted in high-altitude, clay-rich (argile) vineyards on Mont Ventoux and the Dentelles de Montmirail — between 300 and 500 metres, where the cool nights lend the wines a freshness rarely found in the southern Rhône. The vines are 53 years old; up to six layers of rock shape the small domain of Philippe Gimel, whose organically certified plots (Ecocert) resemble gardens rather than production sites.
- Grape varieties & vinification
- A cuvée of Grenache, Syrah, Carignan and Cinsault. Yields of just 15 hl/ha, hand-harvested, 75 % destemmed, fermented for ten days and aged for 24 months in concrete and enamel tanks — you will search in vain for oak here, leaving the fruit entirely unadorned.
- Food recommendations
- Herb-crusted leg of lamb, daube de bœuf, duck breast with dark cherry, wild boar ragout or mature Pecorino.
- Special features
- Philippe Gimel does not separate his grapes by plot, but by berry size — the smaller berries, partly fermented with their stems, become L’Argile. He himself grants the wine a future of 15 years.
A wine that carries the sun of the south yet breathes the coolness of altitude — Gimel’s Ventoux in its most straightforward guise.
