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Perhaps the simplest way to conjure up what Xavier Vignon is about would be to compare him with the world's leading chefs, constantly experimenting, pushing grape varieties and terroirs to their limits, especially in his 'Arcane' and his 'Audacieux' and 'Pioneer' ranges.
Xavier is one of the top consultant winemakers in the south of France. Formerly a master Champagne blender, he now lives and works in the Rhône Valley where he advises many top estates on viticulture and vinification. At the end of each year, as he hands over his bill to some of the winemakers, he offers 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 labels. They are superb wines which are earning him the recognition they well deserve in France - and they are becoming well-known in the UK.![]()
Xavier makes some of the most distinctive wines in the Rhône Valley. One of his earliest examples of experimentation 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 Début 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 Réserve VII IX X (there's an obvious clue to the vintages!) and Sacrilège, a blend of Côte Rôtie Syrah and Châteauneuf Grenache which landed him in trouble when he labelled it Côtes du Rhône - Châteauneuf can only be downgraded 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). These are the wines that make the Audacieux range.
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. They are all exquisite examples of specific varieties and/or terroirs.
The Pioneer range is the most recent addition. 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. Other wines from this experimental range include no-added-sulphite wines and a fascinating white Châteauneuf made almost entirely from red grapes.
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