Producer: Xavier Vignon – The Big Red Wine Company

Xavier Vignon, Rhône Valley (France)

Xavier Vignon is one of the top consultant winemakers in the south of France. He used to be a master Champagne blender (so he knows a thing or two about constructing wines) but now lives in Les Barroux in the Rhône Valley from where he visits around 300 estates to advise them on viticulture and vinification. At the end of each year, as he hands over his bill, he offers some of his employers to exchange it for barrels to make his own blends - well, that's more or less how it works. His preferred style is for intense flavours and big structures so, inevitably, he keeps the best wines for bottling under his own stylish label. They are superb wines which are earning him the recognition they well deserve in France - and they are beginning to become well-known in the UK.

Xavier makes some of the most distinctive wines in the Rhône Valley. In addition to a classic range covering most of the region's appellations, he likes to experiment and play. One of his earliest examples was a blend from at least ten varieties from two distinct regions (the Rhône and the Languedoc) - and many more sub-regions - but it comprised wines from more than one vintage - as already mentioned, Xavier is a master blender. As such "Xavier Rouge" (or "Debut") could only be classed as a non-vintage wine. Oak-aged and very powerful, it was an astonishingly good value wine, sadly long gone.

However, Xavier has gone on to create many new wines since then including a blend of Châteauneufs from several of the leading estates and, further, a multi-vintage blend of the top parcels of "Anonyme", the first of these called "Reserve VII IX X" (there's an obvious clue in the letters!) and "Sacrilege", a blend of Cote Rotie Syrah and Chateauneuf Grenache which landed him in trouble when he labelled it Cotes du Rhone - it is not permitted to downgrade Chateauneuf except to Vin de France - so this wine is now made using Grenache from Gigondas and has been renamed "SM" after Septrionale (the French name for the northern Rhône) and Meridionale (southern Rhône).

Xavier has also created a special limited production range called the Arcane Series. There will be 20 wines in this range, all labelled with Tarot images. Early bottlings included "Le Soleil", "La Lune" and "Le Diable". They are all exquisite examples of specific varieties and/or terroirs.

Most recently, Xavier and his team have created the Vinarium®, a 7000l wood truncated tank designed to accommodate and immerse 5 barrels. The wines from these barrels is called "Intra" and the outer barrel is filled with wine called "Extra". CO2 from Intra becomes the natural preservative agent of the Extra which in turn keeps Intra safe from oxygen.

Frequently asked questions

We discovered wine when making a last grand tour of Europe before settling down to our careers. The old VW camper van inevitably kept breaking down and we found ourselves with time on our hands in the Loire, Bordeaux and, especially, the Rhône. There were only so many rivers to jump into to cool down in that hot summer so we started tasting wine - real wine, not the stuff we had been buying in the supermarkets. We returned to England knowing we would be starting a specialist wine import business importing from the Southern Rhône before expanding the list along with our interests to include a range of excellent mid-price Burgundy, Languedoc, Loire...

The decision to focus on France initially came about for two main reasons:

1. France still offers the highest quality and widest range of styles of wine of any wine-producing country;

2. By concentrating on a smaller geographical area it is possible to offer better value.

Since then, we have succumbed to the allure of Italy and have found some amazing wines from Piedmont, Tuscany, Veneto and, more recently, Basilicata and Puglia in the far south, all superb wines at affordable prices. Great food wines too so, whatever you are eating, you will find something to match it here.

Some restrictions we place on ourselves: only buy wines direct from the producers and sell by the (mixed) case to offer the best prices throughout the UK for wines of this quality. Also, and perhaps most important, only buy wines we like to drink ourselves.

Wines are stored in a temperature-controlled bonded warehouse so they never suffer overheating and dried-out corks which can so easily spoil good wines bought from shops and supermarkets. As we don't have a shop, our overheads are low which in turn enables us to keep our prices as low as possible.

Furthermore, unlike many other internet wine merchants, The Big Red Wine Company will mix cases at no extra charge.

We can store your wines at our bonded warehouse in Basildon for £8 plus VAT per case per year.

We will work quickly to ship your order as soon as possible. Once your order has shipped, you will receive an email with further information. Delivery times vary depending on your location.

Most wines can be purchased "in bond". This means that you only pay for the wine itself until you remove it from storage, at which time you will pay the duty and VAT at the prevailing rates together with any shipping charges. If a wine does not have an "in bond" price, please ask if you are interested in purchasing it this way as all wines are stored at the bond until sold.

Delivery is free on all orders over £200.
Otherwise, delivery is charged at £10 per delivery address for orders between £50 and £200.
Whilst we accept orders under £50, the delivery charge is £20 to cover the costs charged to us by the bonded warehouse.

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