Costieres De Nimes
Le Charmel “vin du Vallée du Rhone”by Melvyn Master
Our wonderful Rhone Wine Le Charmel comes from the wine region of Costieres de Nimes which is the wine country north of the old Roman town of Nimes in the Southern Rhone Valley. This part of the Rhone is usually predominantly planted with the Grenache vine as opposed to the Northern Rhone where the Syrah vine dominates.
However our Le Charmel vineyard has some spectacular Syrah that grows here and as a result we blend the wine with 70% Syrah and 30% Grenache (unusual for a southern Rhone wine). The result is a wine that is deeply rich and perfumed with lingering spice on the palate. The soil here is large stones, very similar to the vineyards of Chateauneuf du Pape further to the north.
De Nimes
Finally here is a fun fact about the town of Nimes. I am sure you wear “denim jeans” from time to time. Well the word denim comes from “De Nimes” which literally means “Of Nimes”. In the old days they made the material for the old sailing boats in Nimes and this later morphed into the material used for our blue jeans.