Chateau Mont-Redon Cotes du Rhone Rouge 2024

Vines were grown on the estate then known as Mourredon as far back as 1334, when it belonged to the episcopal holdings at Avignon. The modern château dates from 1842, and 1923 marks the arrival of the Abeille and Fabre families who own it still; the estate celebrated its centenary in 2023. Pierre Fabre makes the wines.

Mont-Redon is one of the larger holdings in Châteauneuf-du-Pape at 100 hectares, a single vineyard covering most of the high plateau in the north-west of the appellation, with a further 33 hectares in Lirac and 22 in Côtes du Rhône. The estate is certified HVE3, and total production across all its wines is around 90,000 dozen from roughly 850 tonnes of estate fruit.

Precision is the watchword in the cellar. Everything is de-stemmed and passed over an optical sorting system that removes unripe or sun-damaged berries and any plant matter, so only perfectly ripe fruit reaches the crusher. The whites are vinified separately before blending and held in stainless steel on fine lees for five months with no malolactic. Reds are co-fermented wherever possible in stainless steel, after which half the Châteauneuf and a third of the Lirac spend about twelve months in barrel, a fifth of it new, before being blended back into tank for bottling. The aim throughout is freshness and aromatic lift rather than weight.