La Cuvée Mythique Blanc des Vignerons de la Mediterranée 2008, Vin de Pays d’Oc, France (£7.99 The Co-op – down to £3.99 10th Feb – 1st Mar) (Would love to give a link to the two Cuvée Mythique wines, but in classic French fashion, there’s no obvious web site…) Nice combination of aromatic complexity, fleshy fruit and minerally restraint. Peach, waxy pearskin, cream and nut kernel all bound up in a taut stony overcoat. Lots going on here but never in-yer-face, very moreish. B+
Paul Mas Estate Viognier 2009, Vin de Pays d’Oc, France (£8.99 Majestic – £5.99 if you buy two 2nd Feb-26th Apr)
(Even here, the web site is poor, and neither this nor the red seem to feature at www.paulmas.com)
Proper plump, plush Viognier, with lush peaches and cream fruit, but there’s also some freshness and tension here, plenty of fruit and flavour, but finish reined in by zesty acidity. B+
La Cuvée Mythique Rouge des Vignerons de la Mediterranée 2008, Vin de Pays d’Oc, France (£7.99 The Co-op – down to £3.99 10th Feb – 1st Mar) Classic southern French red, all meaty, herby intensity with gentle, mature plummy berry and raisin fruit encased in a refreshing white-peppery structure, rustic in the best sense of the word. B+
Paul Mas Estate Syrah/Viognier 2008, Vin de Pays d’Oc, France (£8.99 Majestic – £6.49 if you buy two 2nd Feb–26thApr)
Big, rich roasted meat aromas, then bold berry, blackcurrant and orange peel character comes through, along with a ferrous edge, young, wild wine with a promising future. S
Cantina Tramin Lagrein 2008, Alto Adige, Italy (£11.49 Hallgarten Druitt, www.wineman.co.uk, www.everywine.co.uk) Refreshing, genuinely light-to-medium-bodied red, almost Dolcetto-like, with crunchy, earthy black fruit (especially cherry) and fresh, sausage-friendly finish. B+
The Society’s Exhibition Chianti Classico 2007, Tuscany, Italy (£11.95 The Wine Society) Modern and fresh, but has this lovely velvety Morello cherry, cherry kernels and blackcurrant, quite full but fragrant, almost violet-like edge, smooth, but with structure of slightly grainy tannins and fresh acidity. S(+)
Château Fabre Gasparets Corbières-Boutenac 2005, Languedoc, France (£9.50 The Real Wine Company) The strawberry-rich flesh of Grenache, the plummy floral edge of Syrah and the wild meatiness of Mourvèdre all bound together by the held together by the peppery/stalky/spicy character of ripe (but not raisinny) Carignan. S-
Ferngrove Shiraz 2007, Frankland River, Western Australia (~£9.50 Seckford Agencies) Quite full-bodied but it’s the fresh berry and blackcurrant fruit that shines through. Add in tinges of violets, liquorice and vanilla and you have a very tasty wine for drinking any time over the next three years. S(-)
If you are surrounded by cake, what do you do? Open three sweet wines…
Mont Tauch Muscat de Rivesaltes NV, France (£5.99 per half Morrisons)
Plump juicy grape and barley sugar, a hint of rose petal, maybe a touch of heat from the fortification, but overall this is very friendly, sticky wine – perfect for Christmas puddings. B+
Heggies Botrytis Riesling 2006, Eden Valley, South Australia (~£11 per half)
Alluring apricot, orange and peach kernel aromas, supple, juicy wine, not overladen with botrytis, but with that almost creamy richness allied to the tangy floral edges of Riesling. S
Disznókő Tokaj 5 puttonyos 2001, Hungary (£21.36 per 500ml Waitrose)
Classic burnt sugar and deep marmalade character, showing some maturity but still with that backbone of searing, almost herby acidity that will keep it in good nick for years to come. Yes it’s sweet, but that acidity dries up the finish – save it for blue cheese and foie gras. S+
For anyone in London looking to find out what was hot and what was not in southern France in the 1990s, the place to head was down Old Brompton Road to La Vigneronne. Liz & Mike Berry’s poky little shop excelled in other French regions, and stocked some of the top names of California and Australia long before many others, but it was vast range of top wines of Provence, Langeudoc Roussillon and South West France that marked them out as different.
It’s been some years now since the two sold the shop (it’s now Handford – still worth a visit but not quite as eclectic as La Vig) and moved to Provence. They found a vineyard and olive grove, and now produce their own oil and wine, but they also carried on offering much of the range found in the shop by mail order. However the lure of retail has enticed them to set up shop again in the town of St Martin de Crau. There are several familiar faces on the shelves from the La Vigneronne days, but there are also some of those discoveries that you can only find by being close to the action. If you’re in southern France this summer, Vin Fins de la Crau lies roughly half-way between Marseilles and Montpellier. And if you’re not, the range is still available through mail order – click here for the first newsletter from the new operation.
Don’t know why, but on one of the chilliest weekends in recent years, we’ve by-passed red wines and been sipping and supping white wines, all from southern France. It’s a vast and varied region, and as with the reds, trying to pigeon-hole them under one banner is somewhat difficult. But the best do have something in common. I’m not talking here about the many varietal Chardonnays and Sauvignons – they’re perfectly adequate Ronseal wines, (they do what they say on the labels) but they seldom set the pulse racing. No, the real excitement is in those rather wacky grapes such as Marsanne, Roussanne, Rolle (aka Vermentino), Bourboulenc and Grenache Blanc. These grapes aren’t out-and-out fruity and in-yer-face, but planted in the right place, but the right grower, they make wines that intrigue rather than assault, and can compete on complexity terms with some of France’s finest whites. And where once they wobbled and keeled over with a couple of years of vintage, today they’re happy to spend a number of years in bottle.
Friday saw us on 2005 Château Gravade Minervois, Languedoc (£7.95 Vintage Roots)
It’s a blend of Roussanne and Grenache Blanc, pepped up with 10% Muscat à Petits Grains, and then partially oak-aged. The result is a wine that manages to be rich, yet remain fresh and sappy, with the citrus flavours boosted by notes of vanilla, herbs and honey overtones. Good by itself, but also a decent cheeseboard white.
Saturday saw us climb to the 2006 Domaine d’Aupilhac Coteaux du Languedoc Montpeyroux Blanc Les Cocalières (£17.35 Berry Bros & Rudd)
Sylvain Fadat has been at the forefront of the Languedoc red revolution for several years, but he’s no slouch on the white front either. Les Cocalières is equal shares of Marsanne, Rolle, Roussanne and Grenache Blanc, fermented and aged in old barrels of varying sizes. It’s still a pup, but its already awash with character – white pepper, honey, quince, dried apricots and more, with freshness and minerality coming through on the finish. Good now, better in a couple of years – move quickly if you’d like to try it as supplies are limited.
If Les Cocalières was the wine for tomorrow, then the 2005 Domaine des Anges Côtes du Ventoux l’Archange (£9.95 The Big Red Wine Company) was absolutely perfect for today.
Château de Beaucastel’s fabulous Châteauneuf du Pape Vieilles Vignes is the benchmark for oak-aged Roussanne, but here’s an excellent alternative for a fraction of the price, rich in smoky pearskin and peach flavours, with oatmeal and honey on the finish, and some of that classic spent-match character (is it minerality, is it barrel related?) that you find in top white Burgundies. Three great wines, one great weekend.
The Petit Verdot grape is best known for its role in Bordeaux, where it adds colour, fragrance and tannin to several top Médoc wines. On its own, it’s generally a bit too assertive, deep and rich, the sort of wine you sometimes wish would go away and learn to be a bit quieter. Or at least that’s what I used to think. The last few months have thrown up some examples to challenge this opinion, from places as far apart as Portugal (Azamor***), Chile (Von Siebenthal) and in this instance southern France, courtesy of the ever-reliable Domaine La Condamine L’Évêque. It has that violet-tinged PV perfume, and a refreshing, earthy core of blackcurrant where others have rather blobby, overripe berry flavours. Full of character, yet weighing in at a svelte 12.5% alcohol, it’s a good buy at £6.15 from Jeroboams.
*** The Azamor web link is here, but be warned, it’s one of those sites awash with totally unnecessary Flash animation. For anyone apart from web designers, Flash is a complete waste of time and effort, narcissistic and annoying in the extreme. French, Italian and Spanish sites tend to be the worse, but this site, complete with Cupid firing a corckscrew-tipped arrows, can compete in the why-do-they-bother stakes.
