Gigondas - Wine Review - NYTimes.com FRENCH winemakers, in their full-on selling mode, love to tell a story in which they serve their own invariably modest wares along with some competitors" expensive, highly rated bottles. Everybody loves the expensive wines on first taste, but at the end of the meal, the winemakers recount with pride, the other guys" bottles are still three-quarters full while their own have been drained dry and second bottles opened. The point? Just because a wine is immediately likable doesn't mean it will remain pleasing over the long haul. This tale may have achieved all-star status among marketing clichés, but it nonetheless applies particularly well when assessing grenache wines. Few grapes make wines as immediately pleasing as grenache. A first glass envelops you in its rich, powerfully fruity embrace. It's that tricky second glass where the measure of the wine can be taken. That glass will reveal whether the initial blast of fruit was structured in a way that will refresh, invigorate and energize, or whether it will simply wear you out. The fatigue factor is often a problem with grenache. It's a hot-weather grape, planted throughout southern France, Spain, California and Australia, and it regularly achieves alcohol levels over 15 percent. Without scrupulous management, especially in the vineyard, those fruit flavors can easily taste hot, jammy and sweet. Yet, when done right, the sheer fruit-drenched power of grenache can be immensely winning, particularly when the juicy, exuberant fruit is tempered by mineral or herbal flavors that create a sense of complexity. Just the other day, I opened a 2008 Gigondas from Domaine du Cayron. Like most reds from the southern Rhône, this was a blend dominated by grenache, 70 percent in this case, along with syrah, cinsault and a touch of mourvèdre. The wine was ravishing, with the great wash of plummy, berry fruit anchored by an earthy, almost gravelly foundation. Sure, it was 14.5 percent alcohol, but it was perfectly refreshing. My wife and I finished a bottle, proving once again the utility of the old French winemakers" saw. Grenache is the basis for great wines like Châteauneuf-du-Pape and Priorat from Catalonia, as well as many lesser known wines, including Gigondas, Châteauneuf's close neighbor. Perhaps as a result of the increased popularity of Châteauneuf, or its rising cost, I've seen more Gigondas in the last few years, especially on restaurant wine lists, where they are often touted as less expensive versions of Châteauneuf. In an effort to get a clearer picture of Gigondas, the wine panel tasted 20 bottles from recent vintages, mostly 2009s but also a scattering of "07s and "08s, and one 2010. For the tasting, Florence Fabricant and I were joined by Raj Vaidya, the head sommelier at Daniel, and Pascaline Lepeltier, wine director at Rouge Tomate. We all agreed that collectively, these were sound, fruity, generous wines that could be extremely likable. Yet it seemed equally clear that placing Gigondas on a level with Châteauneuf was mostly wishful thinking. Good Châteauneuf offers a kind of crumbling magnificence and grandeur that mostly eludes these more straightforward wines. We didn't find the characteristic aromas of wild herbs and spices that relieve the fruitiness in good Châteauneuf. Even the Domaine du Cayron, which I had enjoyed so much at home, but which sadly was not in our tasting, lacked that extra dimension. While the aromas and flavors of Châteauneuf immediately evoke a particular sense of place, these Gigondas wines summoned up more generalized images of southern France. Raj suggested at one point that the telling details of Gigondas were not to be found in the aromas and flavors, but in the structure and high alcohol. Let's be clear, though. I don't mean to criticize Gigondas; I simply want to adjust expectations. Every sort of wine has its place, and I especially value good everyday wines. Even allowing for vintage variations (and 2009 was a warm year that would heighten the fruitiness and power), most Gigondas rarely rise to the level of exalted. "There's a tiny world between Côtes du Rhône and Gigondas, and a big gulf between Gigondas and Châteauneuf," Pascaline said. Wines from Gigondas had been considered Côte du Rhônes until 1971, when the region was awarded the right to its own appellation.