To know something about the Ardèche region of France is to learn a lot about the wines of this inspirational producer. On the map, the Ardèche lies between Lyon in the north and Avignon in the south. Nestled in the hills rising west of the Rhône River, this department is often tagged as part of the wine-growing catchment of the Southern Rhône Valley. Yet with its gorges, waterfalls, forests, hiking trails and limestone and granite crags, this picture-book high-country could not feel more different from the landscape of the lower-lying Rhône basin. And its wines, too, are different. It’s the summer holidays in France right now, and tourists are flocking to the Ardèche to relax in the emerald waters of the eponymous river and enjoy the long, cool summer evenings afforded by the region’s altitude, which rises steeply from the Rhône River to well over 1,000 feet. The food and drink, too, bring pleasant distraction. The prince of French gastronomy, Curnonsky, once wrote that ‘‘the Ardèche is a paradise for gourmets. “Not only is this region home to some of France’s best fromagiers and charcutiers, but its famous sweet chestnut, the châtaigne d’Ardèche, boasts its own AOP. More importantly for us, the Ardèche is also a paradise for wine-lovers. Even if growing is seldom easy in this rocky part of France, vines such as Grenache, Syrah and Mourvèdre in the right hands thrive in the stony ancient river terraces and pockets of limestone. The cooler nights and prolonged growing season imbue its best wines with vitality—not to mention lower alcohols—seldom found in the wines from the valley floor. And just as the altitude changes, so does the language we find ourselves using to describe its wines. Even if we cannot call them cool-climate by any means, words like juicy, refreshing, buoyant, airy, digestible, etc., are no longer commonly linked with the wines of this region’s more famous neighbours to the south and east. Mas de Libian is one of the few Ardèche growers who have crossed the vinous Rubicon. We have barely met a French winegrower who has not at least heard of Hélène Thibon and been seduced by one of her wines. Perhaps more importantly, in the longer term, Thibon’s biodynamic domaine has evolved as some kind of grower incubator, whereby its ‘graduates’ are helped to set themselves up as part of a regional community coalescing around themes of organic viticulture and low-intervention winemaking. But it is what is in the glass that counts. Vintages come and go, yet all this grower’s wines never fail to manifest the vivid intensity and engaging personalities born from this estate’s earth-to-glass philosophy and exceptional vineyards rooted in the cooler and rocky province of the south. To paraphrase the great chef Claudia Roden, they resonate in the glass like a landscape in a bottle.