A Happy New Year to you all from Cairanne; we hope you had a good break and savoured some wines of the Southern Rhône over the holiday season. While it’s tradition on some parts of the world to greet the New Year with a hearty rendition of Auld Lang Syne – the meaning of which we understand to be ‘good times long past’ we thought we’d take a moment to reflect on a few of our own ‘good times past’ of 2012.

Like Séguret, Sablet is classed as a named Côtes du Rhône Villages. Its lush vineyards rise gently up the lower slopes of the Dentelles de Montmirail producing wines of great silkiness, for which Sablet is justly beginning to become more renowned. Notable for its medieval stone fortification, and ruelles (narrow covered alleys) its citadel of cobbled streets which spiral around the church of St Nazaire provided the inspiration for the name of our Sablet – ‘La Citadelle’.