Rhône 2012 – southern whites and rosés

For all other coverage, including vintage reports and the rest of the tasting notes, see our guide to Rhône 2012.

While I tasted nearly 70 of Châteauneuf's increasingly accomplished white wines, I had time to taste only a small selection of wines from other southern Rhône appellations. As a generalisation they tend to be pretty full bodied but the best have considerable tension and ageing potential. See, for example, my 2008 article Châteauneuf doesn't have to be red.

In the 2012s I found none of the spent-match reductive notes that have become so fashionable among Chardonnay and white...