Domaine de la Machotte 2025 - AOC Gigondas
High expectations for our bottle of Gigondas 2025 from the popular Domaine de la Machotte. The domaine’s vines are highish on the hills within the AOC area so benefitting from slightly better drainage and maybe slightly more light, although this medium volume cuvée is not blessed with the grapes seen as the best of the domaine. It’s a Grenache, Syrah, Mouvèdre assemblage.
The bottle is embossed with the crest of the Domaine de la Machotte. It was a long cork, which was hardly wet as 2025 is still very young for a wine from the Côtes du Rhone Villages area (CDRV).
The weather in 2025 in the area was a dry spring followed by a hot summer. CDRV yields are reported to be slightly low in consequence.
Our first impression was a wine with a strong aroma, full of CDRV character. Colour looked bright and initial taste in the mouth seemed cherry more than blackberry or blackcurrant.
Tannic but rounded and refreshing, we tasted this wine young.
At this age, the Gigondas wine tasted as a good wine from around Mont Ventoux but not particularly distinctive nor really justifying its pricing, roughly double that asked for wines from the adjacent AOC villages such as Vacqueyras or Séguret.
Domaine de la Machotte 2025 now tastes as though it would keep in the cellar and has the basis for an even fuller, more rounded taste if revisited in a year or so, which could justify its pricing as well as the Gigondas name. This probbaly indicates that other wines of 2025 from this part of the Côtes du Rhone Villages area are also worth cellaring for a year or two.
We enjoyed this 2025 Gigondas wine with quail cooked in a Bordeaux white wine by Terry with his sauce forestière, accompanied by steamed green vegetables and a baguette hot from the local boulangerie.
We hiked the Denterelles de Montmiral starting from the village of Gigondas.