The Wine Fairy

Tonight, we’re peering into the inky depths of distant heavens, the dark womb of planets and stars…

Just kidding. The inky depths are of “Les Halos de Jupiter,” a mid-shelf Côtes du Rhône I picked up last week.

I tried it at the Total Wine tasting bar and liked it pretty well, but was it all just a cosmic mirage? Let’s pour it up and see!

Halos de Jupiter tastes overall youthful with plenty of fruit. Red and black plum, black cherry, ripe wild strawberry, boysenberry. Baking spices (clove and cinnamon) on the nose, their sweetness evaporating quickly to cedar bark under a hot-and-dry finish.

A scant portion of Syrah (10%) nonetheless makes its presence known in the blend, lending a royal purple color and hints of licorice and camphor/eucalyptus. Some acidity, some tannin–neither as assertive as the fruit and high alcohol. This wine is not fined or filtered and there is a little sediment present in the very bottom of the glass.

This wine is made by Famille Gassier, a family-owned winery in the southern France. They also make wines under the labels Domaine Gassier and Château de Nages. The vast majority of their plantings are traditional Southern Rhône varieties–some planted over 2000-year-old Gallo-Roman vineyards. The Halos de Jupiter project was conceived as an homage to the Grenache grape.

Four Southern Rhone appellations–Gigondas, Vacqueyras, Côtes du Rhône and Costières de Nîmes–were envisioned as the four moons of Jupiter discovered by Galileo. (That’s Io, Europa, Ganymede and Callisto, for all you Jeopardy and NYT Crossword freaks.)

And so, there were originally four wines in the series–all Grenache-based and ranging in price from $16.99 to $34.99. The line has expanded to include a Châteauneuf-du-Pape ($54.99) and single-varietal Grenache, Viognier, and Syrah (all $16.99). Says the winemaker, “In the manner of the halos around planet Jupiter, they highlight the many facets of our sovereign ‘Grenache’.

I should ‘fess up right away that I am squarely in the target demographic for this wine: 30-something women with astrology books on their shelves who aspire to drink something more interesting than your average grocery-store Merlot.

Also, I really like Grenache. When I’m choosing for myself, I often reach for fruit-forward, herb-tinged, high-alcohol reds. And I run in witchy circles where all the dinner-party wines and birthday-gift bottles tend to have celestial, Gothic, or occult-themed labels. (If I only had a dollar for every “Witching Hour” or “Spellbound” red blend I’ve opened in my life…)

So yeah…Grenache with a side of Pagan gods? Count me in! Halos de Jupiter is the kind of wine I should absolutely moon over…but it seems the stars didn’t quite align.

The constellation of Libra is embossed on the label–yet balance is not this wine’s particular strength. It has robust fruit flavors and high alcohol, but a surprisingly moderate mouthfeel and a finish that’s lacking in length. There’s a disjointed quality between the lush flavors of the fruit and a rather sparse, drying finish. Some tannins or tart fruit might bridge the gap, but they’re just not there.

On their website, the winemaker touts their Côtes du Rhône’s very gentle extraction techniques, so forgoing heavy tannins is clearly a stylistic choice. They also suggest cellaring this wine for up to 5 years, during which it might very well develop some complexity and integrate its components.

However, when tasted young it’s overly boozy without having the structure to sustain its alcohol strength. Its round, ripe flavors are appealing, but like a planet orbiting too close to the sun, it suffers from an excess of heat. The bottle I tried is 14.5% ABV, but some past vintages have been up to 15%. I’m still scoring it high because I’m gravitationally pulled toward this style. (Shave off a point or two if ethanol burn puts you off in a wine.)

My final quibble with this wine is that at around $20, it’s not an exceptional value. I’m glad I bought it–and I’d happily drink it again–but it seems to occupy an uncomfortable price point in the constellation of good-to-very-good budget Rhône blends that are widely available in local wine shops.

As a confirmed Grenache fiend, one so-so Côtes du Rhône hasn’t dissuaded me from trying the other wines in the Halos de Jupiter collection. That Gigondas especially sounds like it has a nice ring to it.

Bottle: Les Halos de Jupiter Côtes du Rhône (2022)

Variety: Grenache (75%), Mourvèdre, (15%), and Syrah (10%)

ABV: 14.5%

Suggested retail: $19.99

My rating: 8 (out of 10)

Further reading:

Famille Gassier: Halos de Jupiter

Review disclosure: I was not compensated or provided any free products for this review. Opinions expressed on The Wine Fairy blog are entirely my own.