How to build a wine cellar: a guide to French wines that age well

As I pointed out last month, bordeaux is the prime candidate for a cellar as there is no shortage of well-priced wine there that deserves ageing. And there is a ready secondary market for wine with a good reputation, should you wish to sell some.

In recent years, a secondary market for tip-top champagne has developed, but these wines hardly qualify as bargains. Well-priced champagne is currently difficult to find in the UK. By far the most economical way to buy it in quantity — for a forthcoming wedding, for example — is to drive to the region and buy direct from a reputable family grower. You are allowed to import 12 bottles of sparkling wine duty-free and will then be charged £2.67 a bottle (same as on still wine, of which you’re allowed to import 18 litres duty-free).

Of course you have to factor in the cost of your journey, but Champagne is not a painful or distant region to visit from the UK, and you will almost certainly save money overall. Even quite modest Champagne from a good source really benefits from age.

Burgundy is not that much further, but it has the disadvantage that the wines worth ageing tend to be made in inconveniently small quantities, demand (still!) exceeds supply and very few good domaines are easy to visit. UK-based wine lovers would probably be better off taking advantage of the 2022 burgundy recommendations in last week’s column.

Chablis, the Mâconnais (especially the recently revved-up Pouilly-Fuissé appellation), Chalonnaise (Mercurey, Rully, Montagny and Bouzeron) and superior Beaujolais can all offer infinitely better wine than, say, 10 years ago, at a fraction of Cote d’Or prices.

Jura and Savoie in the subalpine east of France are also great hunting grounds but have become too fashionable to be bargains. Alsace can provide some of the world’s greatest, long-lived dry Rieslings that benefit enormously from bottle age.

The Rhône valley, especially the southern half, produces almost as much wine as Bordeaux, and the wines are much more varied. There’s no formal classification of vineyards and the wines tend to be distributed by specialist importers rather than via an international network.

Most Rhône is red, and is generally either quite full-bodied and based on the Grenache grape, the mainstay of the south, or is more savoury and based on Syrah, the speciality of northern Rhône appellations such as Côte Rôtie, Hermitage, Cornas and the hugely improved St-Joseph and Crozes-Hermitage. All of these Syrah-based wines are worthy cellar candidates. They are not too high in alcohol and have a fashionable saline note, along with the black pepper that characterises Syrah grown in not too warm a climate. In the UK, it pays to seek out one of the Rhône specialists, such as A&B Vintners, Goedhuis Waddesdon, Haynes Hanson & Clark, Justerini & Brooks, Lea & Sandeman, The Wine Society and Yapp Bros, as most wines of interest for cellaring are the produce of family-run estates with which they have long-standing ties.

There are exceptions, however. The northern Rhône is blessed with some exceptional négociants, companies that also buy in grapes. Notable is Guigal, whose most famous labels are the trophy wines La Mouline, La Turque and La Landonne but whose basic red Côtes du Rhône, retailing from about £11 a bottle, is one of the cheapest wines around that will reliably improve after a few years’ storage. (It’s not worth paying professional storage charges on such an inexpensive wine, however.)

Chapoutier also does a fine job, and makes some exceptional whites from the northern Rhône’s Marsanne grape. Not just from the famously ageworthy Hermitage appellation but also its Les Granits bottling from St-Joseph. The valley’s other famous white wine grapes Roussanne and Viognier can now be found throughout the wine world, but the very finest Viognier is very obviously grown on the steep terraces of its birthplace Condrieu. In my experience, only a relatively small proportion of Condrieu demands ageing however.

I’m also an admirer of the wines of négociant Tardieu-Laurent. A much smaller operation than that of the famous négociants, it is based in the Luberon in Provence and produces concentrated, ageworthy wines from especially old vines in appellations throughout the valley. Corney & Barrow and Raeburn are UK importers.

Buying wine for the cellar in the southern Rhône needs expert advice. So much of the wine labelled Châteauneuf-du-Pape or one of the surrounding appellations is blended to a price rather than being a true expression of place. Another problem is that the characteristic Grenache grape really does need to reach a fair level of ripeness before expressing itself, so alcohol levels of well over 15 per cent are now common here. (Interestingly, every Châteauneuf producer I discussed this with when visiting last June claimed to be one of the guys who’d pioneered lower-alcohol wines.)

Dozens of seriously good wines are made here, many at excellent prices, but generalisations are difficult, except that these wines are not for the faint-hearted.

Bandol in south-west Provence is a good example of a spicy red based on Mourvèdre grapes that’s often overlooked and is definitely worth cellaring, as is Domaine Tempier of Bandol’s characterful rosé. Whispering Angel, it ain’t.

The Languedoc to the west of the southern Rhône is home to hundreds of ambitious wine producers, but it also churns out oceans of very ordinary wine. I know from spending summers there how well the reds can age, but far too few have an international reputation, meaning that, with a handful of exceptions, these wines are bargains. It’s almost as though the wine importers of the world have decided that the region is too complex to get to grips with, which is a great shame. In the UK, Stone Vine & Sun takes Languedoc more seriously than most. In very general terms, head for a family-run estate based in a particular appellation. Faugères, St-Chinian and Terrasses du Larzac benefit from higher elevations and therefore tend to produce wines with more subtlety than most. Wine magazine La Revue du Vin de France and my website can provide useful pointers.

The same is true of Roussillon, the generally hotter, Catalan wine region just north of the Pyrenees. It somehow manages to produce some fine, nervy, ageworthy whites, as well as some pretty plump reds.

South-west France has tended to produce wines very similar to Bordeaux, but white Jurançon and red Madiran are brilliant exceptions thanks to their very distinctive grapes, the Mansengs and the notably tannic Tannat, respectively.

And then, of course, there is the whole of the Loire Valley. Few of the dry whites are designed for long ageing, but a fully mature red Chinon or Bourgueil based on Cabernet Franc grapes grown around Tours can be a thing of infinite beauty and is rarely overpriced.

Tasting notes, scores and suggested drink dates on Purple Pages of JancisRobinson.com. International stockists on Wine-searcher.com

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