2013 winners in the annual Concours des grands vins of the Languedoc Roussillon region

Just out, the results of a major regional competition held in Béziers in April.  A well-constructed, easy-to-search database including some of our favourite wines and makers, many other which we don't (yet) know, and surprising omissions!

Among those we have long known and valued are the husband-and-wife duo Cyril Marès (Mas des Bressades) and Nathalie Blanc-Marès (Mas Carlot) in the Costières de Nîmes, Domaine Bort and the Coop itself in Saint Christol, La Gravette de Corconne (major Coop for Pic Saint Loup), the Jullien family  of Ch de Mus and Dom Bachellery near Béziers (but only one Mus wine - they make a lot of other good ones), the Château Sainte Eulalie in La Livinière (Isabelle's Grand Vin and yet another accolade for La Cantilène) A new wine we have not tried from Aiguilloux in the Corbières, and several entries from Ch Mire L'Etang in La Clape which is one of our earliest discoveries in the Languedoc.

Surprising omissions - Benoit Viot's Dom de Chemin des Rêves (in fact there are only 4 Pic Saint Loup AOP wines in the mix) is not there, nor other makers from the Saint Christol group, nor the Domaine Félines Jourdan at Mèze which is a leading and respected producer of Picpoul de Pinet.  But these and other omissions in an interesting but patchy field only serve to demonstrate that the selection of winners in all competitions depends on who enters.  I've always assumed that if a maker can sell her or his wine sithout going in for competitions s/he will do so!

Portes ouvertes in La Livinière

Yesterday we were at the portes ouvertes  at the Château Sainte Eulalie in La Livinière.  I have written before of this excellent Minervois domaine, and you can look at the website to find details of Isabelle Coustal's always excellent wines, so this is a photo opportunity to show off the lovely countryside (with disant views of the Pyrenees, where the Tour de France and Chris Froome were toiling away as we left) and to share some photos of a great day out with our Swiss friend Ralph Néri.

La Livinière from the domaine

Our welcome

Horses & calèche wait for their first passengers...

...us, that is!

Tour around the vineyards

 Views across the vines

Ralph thanks our horses

Isabelle offers tastings to Ralph and to me - he was really delighted with the wines

Apéro time

Music with the meal

View back to the chais from the path nearby

Another excursion returns in time for lunch

Barbecue in action

Music continues

Lunch under the trees

Isabelle announces the quiz winners

Ralph wins first prize!!

The desserts arrive

One of our Australian acqaintances wins the second prize, the splendid La Cantileène

Mirages on the journey home

Typical avenue of plane trees, though the ones on the Canal du Midi nearby are dying

Perched village among the vines

Triballe at Guzargues

Yesterday I went to the organic Domaine de la Triballe in Guzargues.  No photos this time - sorry!  We'd met Sabine Durand and her father Olivier during the excellent Balade Gourmande for the Grès de Montpellier appellation, around Montepellier itself last weekend (see separate post to come), and found their wines really interesting and a bit different, so I decided to stop off on my way to sing in St Matthieu de Tréviers. 

It was a typical vineyard visit, that is, difficult to find especially since I was relying on an internet map - I'll try to include a real map to show the rather wild and isolated setting - so I ended up phoning from the village centre to discover that the caveau is a 2 km out in the country (and a lot simpler to find next time without going through the village!)  Anyhow, I arrived in a rather ramshackle courtyard and deserted buildings, but Olivier arrived soon after and his daughter followed to serve another customer.  Arriving for tastings just after the lunch break here is always slightly risky...

They make some vin de pays, cabernet sauvignon and others, but their main production is in AOC Languedoc - Grès de Montpellier and Pic Saint Loup.  Having tasted the rich white AOC "Aphyllante" at the weekend, along with the nice Grès "Capitelle" 2011 which is mostly grenache,  I decided to taste the other reds, a classic Languedoc which is 50% carignan plus grenache and syrah, very pleasant but with good structure, and then one called "En attendant que..." which is complex, 60% syrah and 40% grenache, and will certainly keep.  I did not taste, but bought to try, the 2010 Capitelle, which has a longer name and a story to match.

As you drive along the new 'Lien' road towards St Matthieu, you go through an area devastated by fire in the summer of 2010.  I realised as I approached Triballe yesterday that Guzargues had been one of the villages worst hit - a friend's house there had only narrowly escaped.  And although vines have a reputation of not burning, parts of the vineyard had in fact been destroyed, including much of the Triballe grenache.  So their cuvée "La Capitelle part en fumée" 2010 was produced in only tiny quantities (700 bottles instead of several thousand) that year, and using a much higher proportion of syrah than usual.  It commands a relatively high price, 18€, not just for its rarity value but because it gained two stars in the 2013 Guide Hachette!  I'm really looking forward to trying it - naturally they were not keen to open one of the rare bottles left for tasting.

Sabine now does most of the winemaking.  Olivier told me they do export a little to the UK, but hopes for more when a favourable Decanter review appears soon.  The premises would win few prizes for elegance, but the wine shows a lot of talent concentrated where it should be, in the bottle.  I'll certainly return.

Favourites - Bachellery

Taking a moment this morning on a journey past Béziers, we called in at the caveau of the Domaine de Bachellery (this site has an English language version) - the domaine is just along the road from the caveau, close to the edge of Béziers.  As it turns out it is also the outlet for another local domaine, the Château de Mus, at Murviel lès Béziers around 20 km north of the city.  Both are owned by the Julien family, but we'd not previously come across Mus, whose château seems to be one of several built at the beginning of the 20th century in imitation of the grand châteaux of Bordeaux or Bourgogne, when the Languedoc wine market was temporarily good.  We must pay them a visit.

We have known Bachellery for more than 10 years, when we first visited the domaine itself with our friend Max during a holiday in Béziers.  They never did tastings at the domaine so you had to buy and hope, but now with the caveau and a choice of nearly 20 wines from 2 domaines available for free tasting, this is an excellent visit.  The place is easy to find too.  Our morning was made even more interesting because we were welcomed by Mme Julien herself, whose son is now the winemaker while her husband is, as she describes him, chef d'orchestre!  All the 6 wines we tasted were excellent, and the prices are exceptionally good - most wines under 5€ a bottle.

Most of the wines are single cépage vins de pays d'Oc.  We tasted 4 whites - a viognier from Mus and sauvignon, chardonnay and Fleur de Sel from Bachellery, the last a mixture of several grape varieties including muscat d'Alexandrie and roussanne, fragrant and pleasant.  Mary liked the chardonnay best and I the viognier and Fleur de Sel.  Then we tried 2 reds, a Bachellery pinot noir we have tried several times over the past 10 years, and a really great malbec from Mus.  We did not taste the Bachellery gewürztraminer, called Ballade en Straminer and with a picturesque label and Alsace-shaped bottle, but we bought some bottles anyway - again, we know from experience that it is delicious.  It costs twice as much as the others we bought - 9.50€ a bottle - but it is worth every penny.

There are plenty more wines to try on a future visit - grenache which we know already, and merlot, from Bachellery, and an intriguing cab. franc/syrah blend from Mus.  We shall certainly return!

Wine tasting in Wirksworth 21 Dec 2012

Yesterday we met with many of our good friends from our former tasting circle to enjoy lovely wines we had brought specially from France. Here are the notes I made for the group.

Wine tasting at Babington House, Wirksworth, Friday 21 December 2012

Wine: Clairette de Die AOC ‘Florilège’ [2011] - sparkling
Vigneron: Didier Cornillon, Saint Roman. Didier was the first vigneron we met when we began the twinning adventure in 1992. He had just set up independently at that point – now he is one of the leading winemakers in the Diois. Florilège is his top cuvée of Clairette de Die tradition, made as usual from mostly muscat grapes with just a small amount of clairette.

Wine: Muscats, Vin de France, 2010 - white
Vigneron: one of our local favourites, Serge Martin-Pierrat at his Château des Hospitaliers domaine in Saint Christol, just north of our town, Lunel. Serge and his wife are passionate conservationists who run their business in a holistic way, encouraging wildlife, preferring to repel pests with pheromones rather than pesticides, and with a magnificent and massive chai built from the golden limestone from the quarries near the Pont du Gard, whose cellars are cooled by a ‘living wall’ covered with plants. Muscats is one of a new range of wines they are developing combining unusual combinations, in this case 5 different varieties of muscat grapes.

Wine: La Fermade, AOC Lirac, 2011 – white
Vigneron: Richard Maby at his family domaine in the village of Tavel near Avignon. He is one of several winemakers we have got to know via the Wine Society, to which his family has sold wines for over 120 years. Tavel has its own well-known appellation for rosé wines (Richard makes a good one), but the nearby Lirac is one of the villages on the west bank of the Rhône better-known for its reds and whites. This blend of grenache blanc, viognier, clairette and piquepoul grapes is a typical Rhône village white – like the Languedoc, AOCs in the southern Rhône are blends rather than single varietals – this white was selected in the Guide Hachette for 2013.

Wine: Saltimbanque (carignan), Vin de France, 2010 – red 
Vigneron: Benoit Viot at his Chemin des Rêves in the village of Saint Gély du Fesc on the southern edge of the Pic Saint Loup area (north of Montpellier). We met Benoit in 2007 when he had just started producing wines, renting land, equipment and buildings. He has succeeded spectacularly, regularly winning prizes for his Pic Saint Loup AOC and Grès de Montpellier AOC wines, and selected to represent the best of southern French winemakers. Carignan is one of our favourite grape varieties, once part of the high-producing grapes which contributed to the wine lake, but now valued because people have realised that older vines, while reduced in yield, give grapes with a great flavour. We helped with the harvest for the 2012 Saltimbanque last September. Single-variety wines in the Languedoc are never allowed AOC status, but are no less delicious for that.

Wine: Sourire d’Odile, AOC Côteaux du Languedoc Pic Saint Loup, 2007 – red Vigneron: Mézy family at the Clos des Augustins in Saint Mathieu de Tréviers north of Montpellier. The Pic Saint Loup AOC is one of the stars of the Languedoc, a reputation matched by the dramatic Pic itself, a triangular hunk of rock jutting above the village of Saint Mathieu and visible from far across the Languedoc plains. We don’t know this vineyard well, but tasted the wine in a restaurant tasting evening – a classic Languedoc blend of syrah and Grenache.

Wine: La Cantilène, AOC Minervois La Livinière, 2006 – red 
Vigneron(ne): Isabelle Coustal at her Château Saint Eulalie in the little village of La Livinière at the heart of the Minervois. Isabelle is another winemaker we have got to know via the Wine Society, which regularly lists this wine and others among favourites of their members and buyers – she is equally well-respected on the French circuit. La Livinière has its own special AOC apart from the rest of the Miinervois – it is on the northern slopes of a beautiful amphitheatre of countryside facing the Corbières mountain and bounded to the south by the Canal du Midi. La Cantilène is a blend of syrah (55%), grenache and carignan grapes.

Salon Epicuvin

On Saturday we braved the wet weather to go to the Salon Epicuvin in Montpellier. The last time Mary and I visited the Château de Flaugèrgues was to rehearse Bach - it is also a domaine viticole but we've never tried their wines. This time we were there primarily to say hello to Benoit Viot whose Chemin des Rêves has figured before in this blog. We know their wines well - the white, like that of Richard Maby, bas figured in recent Guides Hachette - but this time it was to taste his new cuvée La Soie, of which he has only made 600 bottles. After tasting this blend of mostly syrah with a little grenache (because the grapes grow in the same vineyard, apparently), we instantly bought 1% of his production. At 25€ a bottle this is on a par with the Syrhus of Ch. Grès Saint Paul which we know well, but La Soie has a wonderful elegance - no wonder Benoit calls some of his other wines 'Abracadabra'.  Magic!

While we were at the Salon we did some serious shopping for Christmas food - excellent cheese, charcuterie and foie gras alongside the 30 or so winemakers there - and revisited a couple of old favourites among winemakers and discovered at least two new interesting ones.  The first is a really quirky small producer from the little village of Saint Sériès just north of Lunel.  No website for Terre Inconnue, but several blogs - I think Vimpressionistes gives the best flavour.  We tasted several wines, but Léonie was the better for us of the 2 carignans we tried, and we were served by the eponymous Léonie, daughter of part-time winemaker Robert Creus.  The second - Swiss vigneronne Verena Wyss from Gabian near Pézénas.  Her unoaked viognier was the best of the whites we tasted but we didn't try the reds.  Too much to see in one short visit, but an interesting weekend with special events - we must look out for it next year.

Visit to the western Rhône

This has been a very intersting time for us wine-wise, since our return from the USA.  There seems always to be too little time to write about our experiences, but here at least is a flavour of the past week.  Instalment 1

On Friday we went with friends to the Rhône Valley.  The nearest vineyards, still in the Gard département but beyond the areas of the Costières de Nîmes, Languedoc and so on, are on the right bank of the Rhône and include some famous appellations - the best known are Tavel and Lirac, and our longstanding contact Richard Maby is one of the best makers of these wines at his Domaine Maby in the pretty village of Tavel.  He warmly welcomed us despite the busy preparations for an evening function celebrating the bottling of the primeur wines of the Côtes du Rhône.  The habit of bottling and selling red wine a couple of months after the harvest has spread from the Beaujolais Nouveau circus to many other parts of the south of France - obvious economic sense if you can sell part of your production straight away rather than storing it for a year or more.  But it is a quite different product, as we found this weekend, drinking the delicious, light cherry-red wine Richard kindly gave us as we left.  14% alcohol all the same, so although it slipped down easily it is not for over-indulgence!

The traditional wines he makes are altogether more serious, and they have a long pedigree.  Richard's family have been selling wines to the Wine Society in the UK for over 100 years, and a poster (on the wall of the tasting caveau) of the specialist merchant Yapp in Wiltshire showed they too have been buying Maby wines for a long time.  With reason - the La Fermade red Lirac is a brilliant, solid village red, and they are beginning to add cuvées with operatic titles - Nessun Dorma for example for the high-end red Lirac.  The whites (with the usual Rhône mixture of grapes, including some Piquepoul) are equally classy - we bought a little of the unoaked La Fermade and there is an operatic Casta Diva with some barrel fermentation.  And the Tavel Rosé is a dry delight, perfect with food.  All details on their website.

Richard recommended the nearby restaurant La Genestière, not far from the centre of Tavel, which offered a simple and inexpensive set lunch menu, and obviously has much more to offer in an old building which also houses a wine domaine - a real pleasure.  After lunch we had a lovely drive back in the sunshine, but the tasting visits were less exciting.  We tried the Château Saint Maurice which is, as you can  see from the website, a major undertaking.  Mary and I had found their wines in English supermarkets in the 1990s and had enjoyed a previous visit, but this time we felt rather like the sheep grazing among the vines - excluded from even a brief tasting because they were 'too busy' preparing for their own primeur event that afternoon.  No mention of this on the website, and what a contrast from the kind welcome given us by Richard Maby.  So we went on to the huge Cave Coopérative which now combines the village productions of Laudun and Chusclan.  I'd enjoyed discovering the Chusclan rosé in the early 90s, supposedly the preferred tosé of the Kings of France, but although some of the wines are nice we were not excited, and so contented ourselves with a leisurely drive back through Laudun.

 

 

Viticultural relics - as interesting as many of the wines at this co-op