Les Aphillanthes

Domaine Les Aphillanthes is a rising star of the Southern Rhône. Proprietor Daniel Boulle, together with his wife Helène, has been tending his vines for many years. Until recently he was happy to sell his produce to the local co-operative. Fortunately for those of us who appreciate the wines of the Rhône,  Daniel Boulle’s friends rightly saw that his fruit was of superb quality and deserved to be bottled as it stood, rather than absorbed into the wines of the local co-op.

So Domaine Les Aphillanthes was born...

The Domaine is located in the small town of Travaillan, just north west of Gigondas. Here Daniel and Helène have created several “cuvées” of Côtes du Rhône which have rechaed considerable acclaim. Daniel Boulle sees himself as a “Viticulturist” rather than a “Winemaker” and we feel that the agriculture approach, followed by minimal intervention in the winery, is the cornerstone to making great wine.

Very recently Daniel Boulle has introduced biodynamic practices to the vineyard. Curiously, he was encouraged in this new practice not by contact with other followers of the biodynamic principles, but by a success in treating his own son’s eczema using natural medical products. In the winery the wine is transported using gravity feed and ferments in concrete vats. It is indeed a philosophy of minimal intervention. The wines are bottled without filtration, which helps to preserve the flavours through to the bottle.

In Febuary 2009, Robert parker said about Domaine Les Aphillanthes:
"As I have written in the past, this biodynamically farmed estate is a treasure-trove of excellent as well as value-priced wines."