60% Grenache, 40% Mourvèdre (including a touch of Counoise). The Cuvée Les Douyes was previously labelled Cuvée Prestige. It’s drawn from a single limestone-rich terroir (Les Douyes) and from vines planted in 1905. In qualitative terms, this wine stands toe to toe with the Domaine's cult bottling, Haut Coustias, although this wine spends a shorter 18 months aging, in large old foudre (large cask).
The vines are now well over 100 years old and yield between 18-25 hectolitres per hectare, one of the reasons this wine offers bewildering power and value for money. As the note below makes clear, the 2015 Les Douyes is a wine that would stack up to many a serious Châteauneuf-du-Pape. It’s a meat, earth, dark cherry noted wine of great depth and length with plenty of sweet and savoury fruit, spice and powdery tannins. In short, a powerful, old vine cuvée from this biodynamic star.
‘Easily the equal of many wines from more illustrious appellations, the 2015 Cairanne les Douyes is a blend of old-vine Grenache (60%) and Mourvèdre (40%) that spent 18 months in foudre prior to bottling. Yields were a ridiculously low 15 hectoliters per hectare. Intense but still only medium to full-bodied, this is richly tannic and silky at the same time, boasting flavors of cola, raspberries and spice that linger elegantly on the finish.