I was looking along the shelves at Priory Wines in Lymington the other day and noticed a bottle of ‘Les Six’ Cairanne AOC. I was intrigued because I expected it to say Cotes du Rhone Villages but it doesn’t it simply says Cairanne AOC. The answer, I discovered after some investigation is that Cairanne has now been elevated to Cru status which means that it gets its own appellation. This was only confirmed on 25th June 2018 and all vintages since 2016 may now show Cairanne AOC. If you are lucky enough to find a 2015 Cairanne it will be labelled as Cotes du Rhone Villages.  There are three levels of…