2024 Font de Courtedune Côtes-du-Rhône Blanc Vieilles Vignes

The 2024 Font de Courtedune Côtes-du-Rhône Blanc Vieilles Vignes is tight and serious in a tweed sports coat with leather elbow patches. Sans ascot, though. This blanc is no dandy. It’s muscular. It hunts, and its aim is true. Composed of 45% Grenache Blanc, 45% Roussanne, and 10% Viognier, this wine was fermented with native yeast and aged in concrete tank. It needs food. The romantic in me yearns for it with game like wild boar, duck, or pheasant. The realist in me will settle for a thick-cut, bone-in pork chop or a roasted Cornish game hen. The pessimist in me can imagine that pork rinds or lukewarm, deep-fried chicken tenders from the grocery store would shine with this wine. It’s old-vine alright. It keeps its cards close to its neatly tailored waistcoat. Crunchy pear, faint notions of caramelized sugar with negative-one-level sweetness, fresh fennel fronds, wet stones, and a sensation of licking the gnarled trunk of an old vine. Think dry, fine dust and delicate bark impressions. One sip will place you in the vineyard where it grew. The absence of oak preserves freshness and a sense of place. Winemaker Caroline Charrier let the vines do the talking. I like that.