The infamous mistral wind of the Rhône Valley blows for 120 days a year, according to Marc Perrin of Château de Beaucastel, and is strong enough to drive people mad. Thankfully the weather in the southern Rhône was entirely placid in the second week of October, leaving my sanity intact and allowing me to start tasting almost 1,000 wines from the 2016 vintage.
No secret was being made of the perceived quality of the vintage, widely touted as superior in the south to the north (see my overview of the north next week for further...
