Lately I’ve been enjoying some Rhône wines, most of them courtesy of the local budget supermarkets. One I’ve returned to a few times is the 2021 Chassaux et Fils Costières de Nîmes stocked at Aldi. My last bottle cost me £6.49. I wasn’t sure why this one appealed to me more than, for example, a somewhat costlier Vacqueyras, until, reading a three-sentence review of the wine by Tina Gellie at Decanter, I learned that it’s a blend of 62% Syrah, 26% Grenache and 6% Marselan grapes. As a general rule I slightly prefer Syrah to Grenache, with the latter oftener predominating in southern Rhône wines.
Not that the Costières de Nîmes region is, strictly speaking, actually in the Rhône valley. Wikipedia explains that some ‘redistricting’ in 2004 saw it transferred from the Languedoc-Roussillon wine region to the Rhône one, as “its wines are more reflective of the typical characteristics of Rhône wines than of the Languedoc”. In any event, this wine suits my tastes very well. Gellie attributes it with “a lovely streak of tangy blackberry acidity that really lifts and refreshes the spicy palate, which runs the gamut of crunchy redcurrant to ripe bramble”, while David Williams at The Guardian reckons it “full of satisfying dark fruit and spice”. For myself I appreciate its welcoming warmth & hints of darker depths.
The bottle features an embossed emblem at its neck - a stylized crocodile and palm tree. Wondering about its significance, I gathered that “when the Ancient Romans developed the settlement ‘Colonia Nemausus’, which would become Nîmes, they chose as its emblem a Nile Crocodile chained to a palm tree. The symbol commemorates the Emperor Augustus, who fortified the city, and his victory over Mark Antony and Cleopatra in Egypt. Despite large reptiles not being native to Southern France, the crocodile has remained on the Nîmes coat of arms.”
