The top French wine recommendations to buy this weekend

A return to the Rhône Valley this weekend with a focus on the wines of the Southern Rhône, surely the most reliable of France's wine regions at entry level. 

The Languedoc is bigger and more productive but you need to be a lot more circumspect picking up random Pays d'Oc wines from a French (or Irish) supermarket, while you can nearly always take a punt on a Côtes du Rhone. The Northern Rhône is quite different in character, a little like the river at this point. Having risen in the Alps it is joined at Lyon by the Saône (Burgundy's river) and then rushes headlong south cutting steep hills such as Hermitage and Condrieu - Syrah and Viognier country.