Over the past few years, Domaine Wine Cellars has been a significant force for good in Taiwan Wine Culture. I won’t say it was always this way, but the substantial resources and acumen of this company have led directly to a marked and welcome upswing in Taiwan’s supply of Grower Champagne, for example, not to mention a broadening stream of high-quality Burgundies. More recently, Domaine has begun reaching outside these trendy regions, and yesterday we tasted wines from the Southern Rhone Valley, wines with unique stories but dubious commercial potential, simply because Xavier doesn’t have very much wine to sell. Such dedication deserves attention, so, kudos to Domaine for sharing this amazing discovery.

Xavier Vignon has been a winemaking consultant for 35 years, traveling all over the world, and he could have settled anywhere, but he chose the Southern Rhone Valley because his favorite part of winemaking is the blending, and from time out of mind the Southern Rhone has specialized in marrying multiple varieties, usually menages á trois, and sometimes even team marriages.

Xavier spoke at length about the effects of climate change on grape-growing and winemaking. Over the last 30 years, he said, winemaking practices in the Southern Rhone Valley have completely inverted. In the last century, for the best chance of producing ripe grapes. vignerons looked to the warmest vineyards, close to the river, farthest from the frost. Now the challenge is opposite. As temperatures climb and rainfall shrinks, wine growers must protect against excessively sugar-ripe grapes that can launch potential alcohol over the moon, and so they have retreated to the rugged mountains east of the Rhone Valley, into the hills of Gigondas, Vacqueyras and Beaumes de Venice, where at higher altitudes, the summer nights are much cooler, and cooler nights slow the ripening process and preserve freshness. In his own winery, Xavier aims for reductive styles that preserve fruit character, instead of trying to coax flavors from the juice by imposing oak and micro-oxygenation (as he did in decades past). This new wine sounds and tastes like the New World to me, and it’s no surprise that Xavier has absorbed international influences. As a consultant Xavier worked the northern and southern hemispheres, amassing more than 50 vintages.

Xavier’s obsession with reduction — preserving fruit by excluding oxygen — prompted him to join experiments where barrels of wine were submerged in the sea and left there for years. You may have read of these practices or even drunk some of the wine that resulted. Xavier contributed a barrel to one such experiment, and he liked the results, but wine law in the Rhone Valley prevents him from aging his wine this way. He found a shortcut around this law by filling a giant fermentation tank with water and submerging barrels right there at home (no 4 hours driving for a lap down to the Mediterranean). The water in the tank had to be salt water, or all sorts of things might have grown in it, so he added massive quantities of salt and even had barrels made with special bands of stainless steel that wouldn’t deteriorate in the salt water. So much salt created a new problem, but just when things were looking bleak, one of his workers suggested he fill the giant tank with wine and submerge the barrels in that. One of the wines we tasted included wine from these first experiments.

Finally though, the most logical solution was simply to avoid oak barrels completely and age the wine in huge glass demijohns that he now has made especially in Bulgaria. These 220-liter (barrique size) glass spheres also have sophisticated lids with fermentation locks so that CO2 can escape if it needs to without admitting any oxygen. I should add that above all, Xavier abhors plastic. He won’t have any plastic touching his wine.

We tasted the products of all these experiments – the ARCANE Series –all multiple-vintage blends named after Tarot Cards, and before saying anything else, let me just point out that items in this series receive scores well north of 90 from wine critics but cost way south of NT$2000 a bottle. They are big round wines, but not heavy at all. The alcohol is held in check, and the tannins are all silky smooth. These are food wines to pair with Taiwanese meat dishes. In short, Xavier’s wines all have great CP之.

Some people may prefer Xavier’s more conventional expressions, though none of them are as lean as what we’re used to tasting from this part of the world. My own favorite in the DOC group was the first red, a traditional Cotes du Rhone GSM that retails for NT$800… Wow, why not give that one a try? The top of the day for me was ANONYME, a Chateau Neuf du Pape Rouge from the benchmark 2016 vintage. This wine is a field blend of Grenache (required by law) and at least 7 other varieties left over from the old days. It sells for a little over NT$2000, but it might be the best wine I’ve ever had from CNDP, and just compare with another big Grenache from Priorat for example, where entry-level expressions start closer to NT3K…

If, like me, you’re old enough to remember the bad old days of the Southern Rhone, these wines are from a region redefined by climate change and by the masterful technique of Xavier Vignon. I can’t wait to see what he comes up with next.