LVT 2015 r 2012 wh 2012 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. 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 2014 r 2012 rosé 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.
LVT 2015 r Good quality leap forward here since new oenologue, E Gagnepain appeared. Officially organic since 2011. Soundly fruited Visan, with greater roundness than has been apparent in the past at Visan. Helped by outsiders arriving with an open mind – Marianne Fues is 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. A GOOD VALUE estate.
LVT 2012 wh 2015 r 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 20,000 b. A new press was installed in 2013.
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 2017 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
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 os 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 2014 r 2012 wh 2012 rosé Adrien is in his mid-twenties, and is the third generation in wine. In 2001 left the Co-opérative to work in a newly built cellar. He also owns the Saint-Maurice estate called Domaine de l'Echevin. The wines are organic. The Visan 2014 Florescens red was **** wine, and the 2014 Visan red Terre Pourpre a ***(*) STGT wine
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 2016 r 2015 wh Pretty steady quality in the Visan red, no false airs and graces. The bottled share is growing, past 25%. The domaine is organic. The 2015 white Côtes du Rhône was full of heart, and not mainstream, a ***(*), good V wine, the red Côtes du Rhône Vin Biologique also ***(*) in 2015, while the 2015 Visan Vin Biologique red was a classy, fresh ****(*) wine, one of the best Villages reds of that year.
LVT 2016 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. Organic and some biodynamic measures here. Promise in the classic wines, there has been a risk of high extraction in the "top" wines, but that heas eased into the 2010s. From 2009 they have had 1,300 bottles of red Châteauneuf-du-Pape. 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
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. Organic practices here.