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Côtes-du-Rhône, Bout d'Zan Mas du Libian 2019

Red Wine from France - Rhone
4.500000000 star rating 4 Reviews
A beguiling mix of blackberry, olive and liquorice, dark, ripe and juicy. A Rhone red that is full-bodied yet never heavy.
is no longer available
Code: RH57801

Wine characteristics

  • Red Wine
  • Full-bodied
  • Grenache/Garnacha
  • Now to 2026
  • 14.5% Alcohol
  • no oak influence
  • Cork, natural
  • Organic

Southern Rhône (excluding Chateauneuf)

Producing over 3.5m hl (hectolitres), this is the second biggest region for production of appellation contrôlée wine in France after Bordeaux. Most is red, though production of both white and pink is growing. Some 20 grape varieties are planted in the south though one in particular, Grenache, gives the region as a whole its identity: generosity, body, weight and a definite tendency to making big wines. More than half of the production is of Côtes-du-Rhône with the best sold as Côtes-du-Rhône Villages. Better still are the so-called crus led by Châteauneuf-du-Pape itself.

Châteauneuf-du-Pape: This large area to the north of Avignon makes the best wines of the south. Reds tend to be grenache based with syrah, mourvèdre and counoise also used. Few wines combine immense strength with perfect elegance quite so convincingly. Word of caution: Châteauneuf produces as much wine as the whole of the northern Rhône put together. A third is very good, a third acceptable and the last third,...
Producing over 3.5m hl (hectolitres), this is the second biggest region for production of appellation contrôlée wine in France after Bordeaux. Most is red, though production of both white and pink is growing. Some 20 grape varieties are planted in the south though one in particular, Grenache, gives the region as a whole its identity: generosity, body, weight and a definite tendency to making big wines. More than half of the production is of Côtes-du-Rhône with the best sold as Côtes-du-Rhône Villages. Better still are the so-called crus led by Châteauneuf-du-Pape itself.

Châteauneuf-du-Pape: This large area to the north of Avignon makes the best wines of the south. Reds tend to be grenache based with syrah, mourvèdre and counoise also used. Few wines combine immense strength with perfect elegance quite so convincingly. Word of caution: Châteauneuf produces as much wine as the whole of the northern Rhône put together. A third is very good, a third acceptable and the last third, undrinkable.

Right bank: Villages include Tavel (rosé only) Lirac, Saint-Gervais and Laudun. There is more rain here but it is also hot and grapes are therefore early ripening. Most of the area lies in the département of the Gard and stretches from the river westwards towards Nîmes where at some ill-defined line in the soil, the Rhône becomes the Languedoc. This is an area that has much improved over the years and has become a valuable source for very fine, concentrated syrah wines in particular.

A little further on are the Costieres de Nimes, a large area of upland plateau, south-east of Nîmes. For the moment the Costières produces good everyday wines of good quality but there is potential to do much more.

Northern hills: There are fresh sub-alpine breezes at work here and as a result the wines often have a distinct freshness too. Just north of Orange is the largely wooded and isolated Massif d'Uchaux. Many of its star producers here are able to farm organically.

The three 'Vs' : Valréas, Visan and Vinsobres: These are three top neighbouring villages (with a 4th, Saint-Maurice broadly similar to Vinsobres). Vinsobres has full cru status and makes superb wine. Best names include Perrin, now the largest land owner and Domaine Jaume whose wines have been charming members since the 1979 vintage.

Valréas and Visan are planted on the same hill but tend to look north. Emmanuel Bouchard is one of the top names in Valréas. Adrien Fabre makes both outstanding examples of both Visan and Saint-Maurice.

Tricastin/Grignan-lès-Adhémar - The Tricastin is a much neglected part of the Rhône and coming down from the northern Rhône, these are the first vines one sees. It's a relatively cool area, far too cold for growing mourvèdre successfully, but the whites do very well and so does the syrah grape. The area has seen a name change as Tricastin is also the name of a power station on the river. The new name for the wines (which doesn't exactly trip off the tongue), is Grignan-lès-Adhémar.

Central hills - This includes the villages of Cairanne and Rasteau along with neighbouring Roaix. Big full-bodied wines, grenache dominated. Rasteau is all power and might while Cairanne is more deicate.

Plan de Dieu - Large flat expanse of pudding stones that seem to stretch as far as the eye can see, in the middle of which there is an airfield, (largely built for the Luftwaffe) surrounded by vines. Full-bodied style. Excellent for mourvèdre. Jaboulet are very good here as is the Meffre family.

Eastern fringes - Set against an iconic landscape with Mont Ventoux and the craggy Dentelles de Montmirail as the backdrop, some of these hillsides were first planted by the Romans and include some of the best-known names in the Rhône Valley.

Gigondas: Mountain wine, late harvested, always dramatic and very full-bodied though never coarse or overweight. These are generous reds, capable of long ageing. A little rosé is also made.

Vacqueyras: Next door to Gigondas yet different. Fruitier, a shade less powerful and more obviously charming:

Beaumes de Venise: The red is as full as Gigondas but rounder and less complex and this village is better known for its sweet muscat, a vin doux naturel and perfect for desserts.

Ventoux: At nearly 2000m this is some mountain which scores of cyclists are forced to conquer every year in the Tour de France. Its lower slopes are vineyard country though. Traditionally these were known as Côtes du Ventoux and were made and sold cheaply. Things are changing though with more estates cutting yields and making full and concentrated wine, not dissimilar to and better value than many Châteauneufs.
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Mas du Libian

The Thibon family have farmed this estate at Saint-Marcel d’Ardèche since the 1670s but until 1995 any wine made here was sold to local négociants. 1995 saw Hélène Thibon take up the reins with her sister Catherine, give the estate the name Mas du Libian and start bottling their own wine. They have never looked back.

The vineyards lie on terraces of clay and limestone above the Rhône, some covered with the characteristic pebbles that radiate the heat soaked up during the day, thus helping the grapes to reach perfect ripeness. Grenache, syrah and mourvédre are grown for reds while some viognier, clairette and roussanne are made into the single white wine from the domaine. All are gobelet pruned.

The family has never used artificial pesticides on their land and are now certified organic, and they have acquired a horse name Nestor for ploughing instead of using a tractor or the like. All labour up to and including harvesting is done by hand at which time a strict sorting is carried out so that only the best fruit reaches the presses. The wines see no new oak or small barrels, being matured a while in large foudres or demi-muids which do not give oak flavour to the wine and as such allow the terroir to express itself all the more clearly.

This is very much a family affair with their parents watching over Hélène and her husband Alain Macagno, Catherine and their grandchildren as they all take their place among the vines.

Rhône Vintage 2019

The 2019 Rhône vintage continued this region’s run of excellent vintages with surely the boldest statement yet. Of past vintages, 1990 springs to mind for the purity of fruit and ripeness of the tannins, but on a much bigger scale.

The climate of course played its part in full and as in previous years, heat and drought were overriding factors that shaped the destiny of this vintage. But that is not the whole story. What is exceptional about the 2019 vintage is that the wines are not lacking in acidity and therefore have freshness. Stranger still, pH values, a good way of assessing a vintage, are often quite low.
So what were the ‘X’ factors that make 2019 so special? For a start, though there were indeed times of drought, ground water was never really lacking. Autumn rainfall had been plentiful enough. Temperatures for the first months of the year remain on the cool side. Then there was much needed rain in April and May, just when the vine needed it most before flowering. For...
The 2019 Rhône vintage continued this region’s run of excellent vintages with surely the boldest statement yet. Of past vintages, 1990 springs to mind for the purity of fruit and ripeness of the tannins, but on a much bigger scale.

The climate of course played its part in full and as in previous years, heat and drought were overriding factors that shaped the destiny of this vintage. But that is not the whole story. What is exceptional about the 2019 vintage is that the wines are not lacking in acidity and therefore have freshness. Stranger still, pH values, a good way of assessing a vintage, are often quite low.
So what were the ‘X’ factors that make 2019 so special? For a start, though there were indeed times of drought, ground water was never really lacking. Autumn rainfall had been plentiful enough. Temperatures for the first months of the year remain on the cool side. Then there was much needed rain in April and May, just when the vine needed it most before flowering. For most, these would be the last rains until the end of August. And then of course was the heat – sometimes excessive with peaks occasionally exceeding 40C – but never constant, and temperatures at night remained relatively cool, allowing the vine to rest. Late summer rains come as a relief and is then followed by a final heatwave in September, setting the harvest in a blaze of sunshine.

Everywhere made exceptional wines. Both the northern and southern Rhône produced brilliant 2019s. The grenache grape knows all about heat, but what was remarkable was the quality of the so-called ‘second-tier’ varieties such as cinsault and counoise. Such conditions are not common in the north, but the vine adapts and there was no water shortage. That said, the syrahs from the north are like nothing before: so dark, brooding and strong. ‘Flamboyance’ is a word that crops up in tasting notes and is a truly apt one in describing these wines. Speaking to a grower with the gift of synaesthesia, the colour red in all its shades, seemed to define this vintage.
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Decanter

Great value in this blend of 75% grenache and 25% syrah, aged nine months in large oak barrels. While it's full-bodied and packs a bit of a punch, it's a pleasure to drink, with a distinct olive tapenade...
Great value in this blend of 75% grenache and 25% syrah, aged nine months in large oak barrels. While it's full-bodied and packs a bit of a punch, it's a pleasure to drink, with a distinct olive tapenade character and dark and juicy forest fruits.
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Amy Wislocki

The Times

Grenache-led and a ripe, peppery, blackberry and olive-stashed joy.

Jane MacQuitty

JancisRobinson.com

Deep garnet. Not as sweet as many wines made further south. Very rewarding with great balance between the richness of grenache and the structure of syrah. Quite potent though. Very good value.

- Jancis Robinson MW

JancisRobinson.com

Wine of the Week: Technically this certified biodynamic beauty is a Côtes du Rhône but it's from the far north of this massive appellation and is rather different from its southern...
Wine of the Week: Technically this certified biodynamic beauty is a Côtes du Rhône but it's from the far north of this massive appellation and is rather different from its southern counterparts ... a really well-balanced composite of the richness of grenache and the structure of syrah. It’s too strong, 14.5%, to drink without food in my view but would be thoroughly satisfying with a wide range of vivid flavours. I could imagine enjoying it not just with smokily barbecued meat but with highly spiced Indian or Mexican food ... I really don’t think you would be disappointed by this wine, unless you avoid 14.5% wines on principle.
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- Jancis Robinson MW

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