Richards Walford - Domaine la Millière

Richards Walford Importers of Wine

Domaine la Millière

Domaine de la Millière Quartier Cabrières 84100 Orange France Owner/Winemaker: Michel Arnaud Background The first thing that one notices when meeting Michel, the 5th generation of Arnauds to make wine at Domaine de la Millière, is not his soft voice or his Hawaiian-style shirt, but the striking resemblance he bears to the Richards Walford Rhône buyer, not just in looks, but in mannerisms. Any likeness, however, is purely coincidental, and if the wines of Domaine de la Millière have a place on the list, it is simply because they merit it. The vines of this 27ha estate are mostly situated around the winery, and sweep up the gently sloping hillside to the woods which mark the beginning of the Mont-Redon plateau, a magical spot from where one can look out across the Rhône valley to the Mont Ventoux in the east and the Cevennes in the distance to the west. Here in this northern corner of Châteauneuf-du-Pape, one of the oldest and most highly regarded quartiers of the appellation, the terroir is made up of small, rounded pudding-stones with a subsoil of clay and red sand (which, in fact, has far more to do with the quality of Châteauneuf than its famous pebbles). One has the impression that not a great deal has changed here over the past fifty years. That is not to say that La Millière is not modern, rather that the values held by Michel were certainly those of his forefathers. Like the way he still ages his wine in the large oak foudres bought by his grandfather back in 1929 - what little new oak there is in the cellar is reserved for our cousins across the Atlantic – and how he insists on remaining as close to his vines as possible, using the strictest minimum of chemicals, maintaining the woods and replanting only to replace dead vines. With most of the vines having been planted in the 1920s, he can easily justify the use of the term “Vieilles Vignes”. (Something of a sardonic titter was produced by the “Très Vieilles Vignes”, which, at the behest of his US importer, had been added to the Côtes du Rhône Villages label. When the subject was raised, Michel pointed out that some of the vines in this particular cuvée are 120 years old. Touché.) What can one say to sum up adequately these wines? “Old-fashioned” is faintly pejorative, “traditional” does not mean anything any more…. Perhaps the easiest thing to say is that the wines taste like Châteauneuf-du-Pape. This may seem simplistic, but in a blind tasting, they would be easy to place, which is becoming more and more difficult in an appellation where extraction and wood are the new gods. click here to download fiche file in full

Wines ( 2 items ) Select individual fiches for each wine produced by this grower Press ( 3 items ) Press quotes, view online or download