19 JANUARY 1985, Page 38

Special Offer

Spectator Wine Club

Auberon Waugh

For our first offer of 1985 it is back to Rh6ne reds. Although one can find occasional bottles from other regions which are of an excitingly high standard and even cheaper, I maintain that the Rh6ne continues to be the most reliable source of high quality French wines, and to provide the best value, now that Ameri- cans, Germans, Belgians, Swiss, Japanese and all the nations of the world which are deservedly so much richer than us have cleaned out our traditional suppliers. The problem is to find the villages and produ- cers before they become famous, and in this context I am pained to observe that the village of Gigondas (4) thinks it can now ask £4.58 a bottle, very nearly level- pegging with the 1978 Château Musar from Lebanon which I hope to offer next month. It is a lovely wine, but these producers from the minor regions must learn their place in the scheme of things, or they will find we desert them like a flight of swal- lows in winter, headed for Egypt, South Africa, Australia or God knows where.

In searching for a good cheapie among the C6tes du Rh6ne villages, I think I may have stumbled on the best. Laudun is probably the oldest of the villages, John Livingstone-Learmouth (Wines of the Rhone Faber £12.50) puts the Cave de Quatre Chemins first among its producers; and this example won the Gold Medal at the Paris Concourse in 1983. It is a rich, spicy wine, predominantly (65 per cent) from the Grenache grape, with 25 per cent made up from Cinsault, Syrah and Mour- vedre, just 10 per cent of the workhorse Carignan. Obviously enough, at £3 the bottle, it is designed for ordinary drinking, and some may find it too rich for post- prandial tippling, but as an expert I should testify that it goes extremely well with food. It shone out among other Rhones in the same price-range.

Roger Combe is one of the leading figures of the Cotes du Rhone villages, and I hesitate to put his 'La Fourmone' — from the village of Vacqueyras (2) before his own Vacqueyras selection (3) but I certain- ly preferred the slightly cheapet wine, and so did several other members of the panel.

I notice that Livingstone-Learmouth waxes enthusiastic about his La Fourmone, too, and I dare say the selection du Maitre de Chai needs longer. Both are more serious

wines than the Laudun, both make excel- lent drinking now, both will keep for a very long time although, oddly enough, I would guess that the Fourmone has an even longer life ahead of it.

The village of Gigondas, as I say, is getting too famous for its own good. I found this example (4) full of bounce and character, a wonderfully lively wine for drinking now which may not improve much but will certainly keep. Others on the

tasting panel were less impressed by its bounce and character and thought that such qualities .as it possessed were for the future. On form, they should be right and I should be wrong. Allowing for their hesita- tion, I cannot rave about this wine but offer it as something which all but one of the panel liked, with my own qualification that I wish it had been cheaper. Everybody liked the Chateauneuf du Pape Usseglio (5) and everybody thought it a brilliant buy at £5.33. My own hesitation was that having offered the much more famous Chateauneuf Les Cailloux from the same year at only £1 the case more (from Hallgarten, a few months ago) I thought nobody would buy it. Not to put too fine a point on it, I had never heard of Raymond Usseglio, and although Livingstone- Learmouth lists him among 'Other Lead- ing Growers' of the region, nobody else seems to have much to say about him. But I observe that this wine has been showered by Gold and Silver Medals from Orange and Macon, and suspect that something wonderful must have ,happened in M. Usseglio's vats in 1980. It is a much lighter and more forward wine than the 1980 Les Cailloux, with few of the characteristics of Chateauneuf. In fact it has enormous subtlety and finesse for such a young wine. Those who do not, by nature, much like the heavy, burned, self-absorbed wines of this miraculous area will probably decide that it is the best Chateauneuf they have ever drunk. All I can say is that I thought it a brilliant wine. On a blind tasting, I should probably have said it was a freak, experimental Cabernet Franc-Syrah mix from the Loire which had run away with itself in an exceptionally hot summer. It is not a classic Chateauneuf, but I recom- mend it as a most unusual and delicious wine which loses nothing from being served in a Chateauneuf bottle.

As I may have involuntarily revealed, my own favourites, apart from the cheapie, are the Fourmone (only slightly more expensive) and the Chateauneuf Usseglio, which comes as something of a revelation.

I hope the Usseglio does not usher in a new wave of brilliant, finger-clicking Chateauneufs because I particularly like the old style — after 15 years or so — and will be sick as a dog if I see Vieux Telegraphe, Beaucastel, Fortia, Cailloux, Les Cedres and the rest of them follow suit and produce these lighter, more forward wines. But it is a remarkable beverage, nevertheless, and well worth trying.