There are covers. And then there are conquests.
When Grace Jones released Warm Leatherette in 1980, she wasn’t paying tribute. She was declaring dominion. With surgical precision, she dismembered rock, punk, and soul standards, stripped them of sentiment, and reconstructed them in her own image: glacial, muscular, unapologetically angular. It wasn’t nostalgia—it was design. The production, helmed by Chris Blackwell and Alex Sadkin at Compass Point Studios, became a workshop in sonic geometry. And what emerged was something rare in music: a reinvention with structure and soul intact.
This, too, is Gigondas.
Often mistaken for a junior sibling to Châteauneuf-du-Pape, Gigondas is no tribute act. It is not a rustic echo nor a budget version. It is a revision—a rethink of what Southern Rhône wine can be when elevation, limestone, and deliberate structure take the wheel.
Discipline, Not Decadence
Châteauneuf-du-Pape has history, prestige, and the opulence to match. Like the original versions of Jones’ cover songs—from The Pretenders to Roxy Music—there is richness, elegance, and sometimes a touch of self-satisfaction. These wines are layered, baroque, and often sun-drenched to the point of excess.
But Gigondas tightens the belt. It climbs higher. Its vines cling to the Dentelles de Montmirail like dancers suspended in tension. The result? A wine that trades opulence for edge—with firm tannins, bracing minerality, and a wildness Châteauneuf sometimes smooths away in polish.
Likewise, Warm Leatherette trades the velveteen lushness of disco for the lean, dubbed-out rigor of reggae and post-punk. There is still rhythm. Still beauty. But it is hard-earned. Structured. Controlled.
The Compass Point of the Rhône
Listen closely to “Private Life.” What you hear is restraint weaponized. Sly and Robbie do not overplay; they undermine. Every empty space is deliberate. Every note a provocation. Grace doesn’t sing the song—she inhabits it with quiet authority. The production is immaculate not in its fullness, but in its balance. A masterclass in subtraction.
Gigondas behaves the same way. Where Châteauneuf might drape itself in fourteen grape varieties and a robe of alcohol, Gigondas more often narrows the cast to Grenache, Syrah, and Mourvèdre, and lets the terrain dictate tone. Think black cherries under tension. Think rosemary and crushed rock. Think earth and steel held in suspense.
This is not minimalism for fashion’s sake—it is structure with intent.
Voice and Terroir: The Signature
Grace Jones’ voice, like a Gigondas hillside, is elemental. Cold, regal, androgynous. You don’t listen to her for comfort. You listen for clarity, for authority. Likewise, you don’t drink Gigondas for plushness—you drink it for definition. For its verticality. For the way it commands attention without screaming.
Jones redefined the song. Gigondas redefines the blend. Both are acts of authorship, not mimicry.
Final Movement: On Not Playing It Safe
In a world that too often rewards repetition and formula—whether in winemaking or pop music—Warm Leatherette and Gigondas remind us of a finer tradition: reinvention with backbone.
Structure does not mean rigidity. It means freedom within form. It means letting terroir—or rhythm—speak without being drowned in overproduction or oak. It means respecting the original material not by preserving it, but by challenging it. Reworking it. Owning it.
Grace Jones did not cover songs. She colonized* them.
And Gigondas does not imitate Châteauneuf. It dismantles the hierarchy and builds something fiercer, higher, and less forgiving—but every bit as worthy.
So next time you hear the bassline of “Private Life” roll in like distant thunder, or sip a Gigondas with its austere seduction and iron tannins—remember: some of the most lasting works of art come not from invention, but from the ruthless reinvention of what was once familiar.
Footnote
*On the Use of the Word “Colonize”
When I say Grace Jones colonized the songs she covered, I mean it in the full, deliberate sense: she took control, imposed her own aesthetic regime, and rewrote the power structure of the original material. This is not a flippant metaphor. It is a statement about authorship, domination, and cultural inversion.
Jones—a Black, Caribbean woman—entered a Euro-American songbook and didn’t just contribute. She seized the frame. Like a post-imperial mirror, she turned the logic of colonization back on the canon itself: occupying it, reshaping it, and radiating sovereign cool from its center.
This is not a celebration of colonialism. It’s a reversal of it—and an acknowledgment that some revolutions in music and wine happen not through polite homage, but through forceful reinterpretation.
Just as Gigondas refuses to kneel before Châteauneuf, Jones refuses to sing someone else’s song the way they intended it. She doesn’t ask for space. She takes it.
NEUwine 
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