Bouzons Cotes du Rhone Rouge La Friandise 2022

If you’re seeking highly drinkable red wines that can skip between pizza, roasts, and everything in between, you’ll want to take a look at Côtes du Rhône. While the Rhône Valley is most well known for its esteemed (and expensive) regions like Châteaneuf-du-Pape, Gigondas, and Cornas, good old Côtes du Rhône offers high quality, well-priced wines that seem to get better and better every year as winemakers take bigger steps toward sustainable farming and minimal intervention winemaking.

The Seguire family has seen it all. They’ve been making wine here for 6 generations, working out of a stone farmhouse that was built around a naturally occurring spring discovered 400 years ago. They have 30 hectares of mostly old vines planted to clay limestone soils. When you stand in their vineyards, your boots immediately take on a dusty layer of that light, almost yellow-ish soil. You have to walk carefully, because fist-sized and smaller pebbles litter the vines. The harrowing Mistral wind will make you squint, but be thankful for it: the cleansing blast of air makes it much easier to farm organically, which the Seguire family takes full advantage of.

Friandise translates to “treat,” and we’re in full agreement. This Grenache-forward Côtes du Rhône is a joyful mix of blackberry, baking spice, and dried herbs—but the real focus is on the fruit. Father and son winemakers Marc and Nicolas Seguire say you could hold this for around 5 years, but we think it’s too good to wait. All-in-all, this is an excellent weeknight dinner wine that you’ll want to keep coming back to.