LVT 2018 r 2019  wh 2019 rosé Lots of wine here, lots of different names. Standards have improved, and some wines have local feel now. Clearer fruit is discernible in wines such as Lou Calin. The 2015 Visan Cuvée du Marot red was a good and drinkable ***(*) wine. The Visan Notre Dame des Vignes red is based on 1950s Grenache, and the ***(*) 2018 felt more like a domaine than a Co-operative wine, personal and attractive.

In 2015, with the motive of cutting costs both on admin and sales, a group called the Cercle des Vignerons du Rhône was formed, comprising senior partner the Cave de Rasteau Ortas and the Cave Les Coteaux de Visan. This was augmented in January 2017 with the inclusion of the Sablet Cave Le Gravillas.

LVT 2019 r 2012 rosé 2019 wh A big operation, 75 hectares, 16 ha of which make the Visan. The other communes are Tulette and Bouchet supplying Côtes du Rhône and Vin de Pays. The Visan is organic from 2013, the rest of the vineyards from 2014-15. Gérard works the vineyards, Jean-Paul does the cellar and vinification. Jean-Paul was 57 in 2013, and Gérard 62, and the domaine will be split in half, with Corinne, 35 years, taking over her father Gérard’s side of it. She is talented in her own name, with very good organic Côtes du Rhône from Tulette. 

LVT 2018 wh 2018 r A recently started organic domaine with six hectares of Visan red, av age 30 years, includes 1945 Carignan, and one hectare of white [Marsanne-Roussanne, planted 2012], both on L'Obrieu. David Peyron joined the family domaine in 1996, and until 2016 sent his harvest to the Cave Les Coteaux de Visan. With wife Virginie also coming on to the domaine, they started on their own in 2017. There are also five hectares of Valréas, and a further seven hectares of Côtes du Rhône red, also on L'Obrieu at Visan. The wines carry commendable purity, allowing them to give clear drinking with a nicely unhurried feel. It's a promising address. The Valréas Côtes du Rhône Villages Chakra red, 60% Syrah, 40% Grenache from the late 1980s, was a genuine **** wine, with good local typicity in 2018.

LVT 2018 r 2019 rosé 2018 wh  There has been a good quality leap forward here since new oenologue, E Gagnepain appeared. The domaine has been officially organic since 2011. There is soundly fruited Visan, with greater roundness than has been apparent in the past at Visan. The major wines have serious structure, notably the Visan La Rocaille, based on mid-1960s Grenache, the 2017 a ****(*) wine.

In its early days, the domaine was helped by outsiders arriving with an open mind – Marianne Fues from Zurich, her husband Marc from the Canton of the Vaud, who used to work in the formerly “illustrious” Crédit Suisse Bank… The first wine was in 1994. Around 10% can be sold in bulk, some of the Côtes du Rhône. The 2015 Côtes du Rhône Florilège red was a **** w.o.w. wine. This is a GOOD VALUE estate. The domaine changed hands in 2019. Two whites, both Visan, were introduced in the late 2010s. L'Octave is 95% Grenache blanc [depth for la table], while the Trilogy [elegant] is one-third each Grenache blanc, Roussanne and Viognier.

LVT 2018 r Jean-Yves Perez came to the family domaine in 2003. His father is still a Co-operateur at Les Coteaux de Visan, so Jean-Yves chose to rent 5 hectares of older vines from him. His first vintage was 2005, using the cellars of Olivier Cuilleras, and with his own cellar he started in 2006. The results are promising. Bottling depends on demand – the more demand, the more is bottled. In 2013, 25-30,000 bottles were produced: 20% of the production. Note a new cellar from 2012. The Visan Les Antonins 2012 red was STGT wine; it comes from a 2.5 hectare plot at 350 metres, and is based on 1960s Grenache.

LVT 2019 wh 2019 r This is a sound address  Father Bernard Boyer, from Rochegude, bought the domaine in 1988. Vincent came back to the domaine in 1998, and set up in 2000. 92 hectares here mainly between Visan and Suze-la-Rousse. 150-200,000 bottles per year, of which Visan 35,000 b. A new press was installed in 2013. The reds are vat raised, with no oak. The Domaine Visan red [40% Grenache, 40% Syrah, 15% Mourvèdre, 5% Carignan] was a most engaging fruit-filled wine in 2019, and great VALUE. The Côtes du Rhône Les 3 Filles white is 95% youngish Viognier, steel vat handled, and the ***(*) 2019 held juicy pleasure.

LVT 2012 r 2007 wh 2007 rosé 60% bottled, and growing. The Michel family were at the Vinsobres Co-operative until 2004, and the first bottlingof consequence occurred in 2005. Most of the vines planted in the late 1970s by the parents when they moved it on from being a fruit farm.

LVT 2014 r 2015 wh  Domaine that straddles the Visan-Valréas border. Emphasis on the Syrah at Visan, the Grenache at Valréas. Sound wines here.

LVT 2018 r 2018 wh 2018 rosé  Domaine Dieu-le-fit  [how it is formally spelt] was started in early 2014, after a falling out between father and son, with Rémi Pouizin moving on from the Domaine La Fourmente where he had worked since starting it in 2000, when it was immediately organic. The last Fourmente vintage was 2013, thus. His father’s domaine, from 2014, is called Clos des Mûres.

Rémi is fully committed to biodynamic practices. 25 hectares of vineyards are worked organically, with Rémi paying his father for the crop. In the cellar he has introduced large tronconic oak fermenting vats and pyramid shaped concrete vats. He and his wife Géraldine also do a bed and breakfast and restaurant dining service [Géraldine is a qualified chef] – table d’hôte - with organic vegetables from their garden. The wines receive low sulphur dosage, the Visan Grains Sauvages red, zero SO2. Prices are a little high, but quality is good. The Visan Native red was a **** wine in 2016, while the IGP de la Mediterranée Amour de Fruit red was a ***(*) w.o.w. wine in both 2017 and 2018. There's also a handy 100% Marsanne IGP de la Mediterranée white, the 2017 a stylish ***(*) wine.

LVT 2019 r 2019 wh 2019 rosé Adrien is the third generation in wine here, a gifted young man, also the partner of Claire Michel of Le Vieux Donjon at Châteauneuf-du-Pape. In 2001 he departed the Visan Co-opérative to work in a newly built cellar. He also owns the good Saint-Maurice estate called Domaine de l'Echevin, which from 2019 has also been called Domaine La Florane as well. The wines are organic and biodynamic. This is a high quality address, with notable fruit clarity, and more and more of aleaning towards elegance. Indeed, there has been a conversion from obvious oak and extraction in the 2000s to these more refined, and superior wines of the late 2010s, early 2020s.

The Visan Fleur de Pampre range in red, white and rosé is a very good bet; the white [based on Marsanne fom the early 1980s, unusual for round here] is refined, as is the well restrained rosé, the red suitably generous of fruit. The Visan red Terre Pourpre is 80% Grenache, 20% Mourvèdre, the 2018 an effusive **** wine capable of matching a wide variety of dishes.

With Claire Michel, he has a small, good merchant business under the name Cuisine en Famille, two red and one white organic wine, one of the reds zero added SO2.

LVT 2014 r 2012 wh 2009 rosé Advancing domaine, propelled by the son Rémi. The bottle versus bulk proportion is rising all the time, and is now about 60% all the wine, with two-thirds of that in Visan itself. The domaine is officially organic, and is moving towards biodynamic practices. The Pouizins also have 5 hectares of lavender, from which they make an essential oil of lavendin, from the abrial variety.

LVT 2011 r Olivier is a trained oenologue from the Montpellier Wine School, who worked as assistant in Saint-Joseph and Condrieu before starting his own cellars in 2000. Modern wines, the best of which is the Vieilles Vignes. They could be more relaxed. Until late 2000s whole bunch fermentation on whole range, now the Vieilles Vignes and Louise-Amélie are the two whole bunch wines, the Devès destemmed. The domaine converted to organic in 2013.

LVT 2019 r  2019 wh  Pretty steady quality in the Visan red, no false airs and graces, indeed a wild authenticity in vintages such as the 2018. The bottled share is growing, past 25%. The domaine is organic. Quality is now consistent across the range. There is now a zero added SO2 Côtes du Rhône red, which was a **** wine with pinpoint fruit purity in 2019.

LVT 2019 r 2016 wh 2015 rosé Now in his forties, the enthusiastic Vincent started on his own in 1998, when he left the Visan Co-opérative. It is a domaine that is both organic and biodynamic. Quality is high, and consistent. There has been a risk of high extraction in the "top" wines, but that eased into the 2010s. From 2009 there have been 1,300 bottles of red Châteauneuf-du-Pape. The two Visan reds are both concrete vat raised. The 2014 Visan red was a most enjoyable w.o.w. wine, while the 2016 Côtes du Rhône 100% Nature sans soufre ajouté red (zero sulphur) was an intricate, pleasing **** wine. The 2017 old vine Marius Visan red, mainly Grenache topped up with Syrah, was a most intricate, thought-provoking ****(*) wine.

LVT  2013 r  An address to note. The family have been Co-operateurs at Visan, with 47 hectares in total – 33 ha at Visan and 14 ha at Tulette. In 2009 Xavier took 7 hectares to work on his own. It is shaping up to be an above average estate. There are organic practices here.