Southern Rhone
The Southern Rhone Valley is a much larger area than the Northern Rhone: close to 95% of all wines in the Rhone come from the Southern Rhone. To give you an idea, more than 380 million bottles of wine are produced each year in the Southern Rhone Valley! You have a wide range of terroirs, micro climates, soils, wines and wine styles.
Wines from the Southern Rhone are fruity, expressing red fruit flavours over black fruits, giving you fresh, sweet, ripe cherries, kirsch, black raspberry and strawberry flavours, often with fresh Provencal herbs, olives and a nice, spicy accent.
Wine lovers can enjoy red, white, rose and sparkling wines, which are all made in the Southern Rhone Valley. There are even a few producers that make sweet wine in the south as well. The wines from the Southern Rhone do not need aging most of the time either, which is a positive benefit for the consumer as well. You can buy them and enjoy their pleasures at will.
In the Southern Rhone Valley, the climate is hotter. It rains less here than it does in its neighbour to the north. There are 15 different allowable wine grapes permitted to be blend to create wines in a myriad of different styles, with unique characteristics. The most important grape in the Southern Rhone Valley is clearly Grenache. The most famous appellations are the renowned Cote du Rhone and Chateauneuf-du-Pape.
