Tuesday, 10 October 2017
Opinions about wine and Château La Croix du Lys red 2014
We drank half a bottle of this wine with some some shoulder of roast lamb the other night and polished off the rest of the bottle the following evening with some lamb cawl. I rather enjoyed the Château La Croix du Lys red 2014. It was full of plum fruit and blackcurrant flavour. It was quite complex and of full body. The tannin was already quite well integrated. It went down well with the lamb and the taste remained on the palate for quite a long time after swallowing. It had all the hallmarks of good standard Bordeaux and it was good value for money. It would probably improve in the bottle for a couple of years longer.
I looked up the wine on on some websites and the opinion of this wine varied especially on this site.
https://www.vivino.com/wineries/croix-du-lys/wines/bordeaux-2011
For starters the website gets the origin of the wine wrong. Château La Croix du Lys originates in the Blaye region of Bordeaux: the wine is AOC Blaye Côtes de Bordeaux and not Entre-deuxs-Mers.
One drinker rated the wine as disappointing and not interesting. Another rated, the wine more highly, with notes of wood flavour -presumably oak- an elegant wine which was fine and lightly spiced. These are indeed very different opinions. One of the drinkers awarded it 5 out of 5 stars without giving a verbal opinion.
Who is right and who is wrong? Who can tell? Some tasters may be more sensitive to some flavours than others. Some may just be prejudiced. Some may be expecting something better or worse than what they actually tasted. Some maybe looking at the label and then making a judgement. My bottle of Château La Croix du Lys 2014 did not set an expectation on the label as there was no description of the wine. You have to make your own judgement as far as the producer, Simon Rey et Fils, is concerned.
You can learn about the features of wine which give you a clue about the quality of the wine and its potential to improve with ageing. You can learn to spot when a wine is corked, but even then some people are oblivious to the cork taint produced by a combination of a miscreant fungus and the antibiotic used to treat it. Even if you cannot taste cork taint then the affected wine will have lost its fruit character. Some Masters of Wine are unable to sniff out a cork taint but they should be able to recognise that the wine has lost a lot of its quality when affected by 2,4,6-Trichloroanisole (TCA) cork taint. Top wines are not immune to cork taint, no matter what they cost, as most top wines will be sealed with a cork.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cork_taint
A top quality wine may simply be not to your taste; before buying a case of an expensive wine you should taste it. If you are a wine investor you should do the same to ensure that your wine has got the ageing potential to increase in value over many years. Whether you drink your wine or invest in wine you should learn to trust your own judgement. Why not do a wine course?
https://www.wsetglobal.com/
Wednesday, 27 September 2017
What wine to drink with "Cawl"
A couple of weeks ago my wife and I visited Tenby in Pembrokeshire, Wales. We went to the covered market for lunch, or dinner, as they often call lunch in that part of the world. The ladies at the food booth in the market served up one of the best cawls I have ever eaten. It was made with bacon rather than lamb. In fact, we dined out on some of the best food I have ever eaten; £6.95 for a bowl of cawl and a cup of tea - what a bargain. I have visited many of the world's greatest cities and have dined in some of their finest restaurants: the Tenby ladies are easily the equals of top chefs.
Many readers who have never visited Wales maybe asking what is cawl and this might be why you reached this blog?
Cawl is simply Welsh for broth or stew. This dish is now becoming quite trendy in Wales in up market pubs. Usually, it will be served with lamb and cheese. The cheese is stirred into the stew to melt. You will also be served a lump of bread and welsh salted butter to soak up the broth.
Cawl was originally a peasant dish as the blog below admirably describes. In former times root vegetables and cabbage and leeks were the only plant ingredients available to make a stew in winter. In Wales right up into the 1960's my mother never made a stew, in winter, with tomatoes as they were not in the shops. Other vegetables such as courgettes and were never even heard of, let alone sold at the green grocer.
My Mum made cawl from swedes, potatoes, carrots, leeks, cabbage and sometimes turnips and parsnips. We ate bread with it but rarely stirred in grated cheese. She added lamb or beef to the stew. Cawl, is the best way to eat swedes and turnips. I can't stand either the flavour, sight or feel of a dollop of boiled swede added to the meat and two vegetables for Sunday lunch.
Cawl is not limited to having lamb as the main source of meat. You can just as well use pork, ham, mutton or even chicken. In areas near the sea you can use fish. The very poor might even have used a wild rabbit, caught with a terrier, but skinned and gutted of course.
When meat was in short supply or you could not afford to eat it every day of the week then you could just add the stock from the previous day's boiled ham for flavour. Cawl was originally a peasant or country dish there was no desire or money to add fancy ingredients - it was every day eating and not trendy.
My mother was from London and never used the word cawl for her stew, my Welsh father rarely corrected her; he preferred to eat his stew rather than have it poured over his head. Whatever the dish was called, it was always delicious and it always tasted better when added to the next day and reheated.
Some people eat or drink the broth first and then consume the meat and vegetables afterwards. My family never did this; we ate the broth together with the meat and veg. We then mopped up the remaining broth from the bowl with bread. Nothing was wasted and there was less washing up. If everything was well diced up there was no need for a knife and fork: just a spoon would do.
http://www.bodnant-welshfood.co.uk/welsh-cawl-3668/.html
But what do you drink with your cawl? Before the 1970's the Welsh would have had no pretensions to drink wine with their stew: a cup of tea went down very well at home or, in a pub, a pint of bitter.
I made a cawl the other night using diced bacon. My wife fancied some wine so we drank half a bottle of Stepp - Pinot Noir from the Pfalz in Germany. We finished off the rest of the bottle with another bowl of my cawl the following evening. This medium-body wine went really well with bacon. You could also try an Alsace Pinot Noir and if you want to spoil yourself a bottle of red Burgundy.
http://www.marksandspencer.com/stepp-pinot-noir-case-of-6/p/p60092266
We also make cawl from lamb and the last time we did this we drank a standard red Bordeaux from a French supermarket.
https://enchateauhautrian.com/
If you make your cawl with wild rabbit or hare why not try Cahors from south west France. The strong taste of the wine conferred by the strong tannin and flavour of the Malbec black grapes goes well with game. It is best to let your Cahors mature for a few years before drinking.
https://www.frenchentree.com/living-in-france/wine/the-black-wine-of-cahors/
If you are making a sea-food cawl why not try a white Bordeaux or an Albariño from northern Spain or an Alvarinho from Portugal.
https://www.nytimes.com/2014/12/17/dining/wine-review-white-bordeaux.html
https://www.bbcgoodfood.com/glossary/albari%C3%B1o
http://www.marksandspencer.com/tercius-alvarinho-case-of-6/p/p60042772
Here is my recipe for cawl made with bacon. I have got no time for quoting weights.
Chop up enough smoked bacon, or use ready chopped lardons, with more than sufficient for the numbers dining.
Likewise, chop up some potatoes.
Chop up some carrots.
Chop up a couple of leeks.
Slice up some greens or cabbage.
Chop up some swede and /or turnips
Slice some parsnips to taste ( I don't usually use parsnips).
Use a cast iron pot with a lid.
Grease the bottom of the poth and lightly fry the bacon.
When the bacon is cooked add a glass of water.
Add the vegetables to the meat add more water to fill up the pot and bring the cawl to the boil.
Add salt and pepper to taste.
Stir the pot.
I also add lemon juice and honey to taste. In the olden days they would not have used lemon juice but cider vinegar would have been available and could be used today.
Use a meat stock - chicken or beef or bacon to taste.
I add juniper berries, cloves and cinnamon to taste. These were probably not used in the good old days.
After the cawl has been brought to the boil, simmer it for two hours or so. I pour some water into the depression of our "Le Creuset " lid to help reduce the temperature to stop all the fluid in the pot boiling away too quickly. I stir the pot again before refilling the lid.
Be careful if you make cawl with fish. It is probably best to add any fish towards the end of cooking because over cooked fish will end up looking and feeling rubbery and tough.
Serve the cawl piping hot into a large soup bowl. Add some Welsh cheese to taste or some English cheddar and eat the stew with some buttered brown bread.
Add to the leftovers the following day to enjoy your delicious soup once or twice again. I never get fed up of eating cawl as it is full of taste and goodness.
Enjoy.
Many readers who have never visited Wales maybe asking what is cawl and this might be why you reached this blog?
Cawl is simply Welsh for broth or stew. This dish is now becoming quite trendy in Wales in up market pubs. Usually, it will be served with lamb and cheese. The cheese is stirred into the stew to melt. You will also be served a lump of bread and welsh salted butter to soak up the broth.
Cawl was originally a peasant dish as the blog below admirably describes. In former times root vegetables and cabbage and leeks were the only plant ingredients available to make a stew in winter. In Wales right up into the 1960's my mother never made a stew, in winter, with tomatoes as they were not in the shops. Other vegetables such as courgettes and were never even heard of, let alone sold at the green grocer.
My Mum made cawl from swedes, potatoes, carrots, leeks, cabbage and sometimes turnips and parsnips. We ate bread with it but rarely stirred in grated cheese. She added lamb or beef to the stew. Cawl, is the best way to eat swedes and turnips. I can't stand either the flavour, sight or feel of a dollop of boiled swede added to the meat and two vegetables for Sunday lunch.
Cawl is not limited to having lamb as the main source of meat. You can just as well use pork, ham, mutton or even chicken. In areas near the sea you can use fish. The very poor might even have used a wild rabbit, caught with a terrier, but skinned and gutted of course.
When meat was in short supply or you could not afford to eat it every day of the week then you could just add the stock from the previous day's boiled ham for flavour. Cawl was originally a peasant or country dish there was no desire or money to add fancy ingredients - it was every day eating and not trendy.
My mother was from London and never used the word cawl for her stew, my Welsh father rarely corrected her; he preferred to eat his stew rather than have it poured over his head. Whatever the dish was called, it was always delicious and it always tasted better when added to the next day and reheated.
Some people eat or drink the broth first and then consume the meat and vegetables afterwards. My family never did this; we ate the broth together with the meat and veg. We then mopped up the remaining broth from the bowl with bread. Nothing was wasted and there was less washing up. If everything was well diced up there was no need for a knife and fork: just a spoon would do.
http://www.bodnant-welshfood.co.uk/welsh-cawl-3668/.html
But what do you drink with your cawl? Before the 1970's the Welsh would have had no pretensions to drink wine with their stew: a cup of tea went down very well at home or, in a pub, a pint of bitter.
I made a cawl the other night using diced bacon. My wife fancied some wine so we drank half a bottle of Stepp - Pinot Noir from the Pfalz in Germany. We finished off the rest of the bottle with another bowl of my cawl the following evening. This medium-body wine went really well with bacon. You could also try an Alsace Pinot Noir and if you want to spoil yourself a bottle of red Burgundy.
http://www.marksandspencer.com/stepp-pinot-noir-case-of-6/p/p60092266
We also make cawl from lamb and the last time we did this we drank a standard red Bordeaux from a French supermarket.
https://enchateauhautrian.com/
If you make your cawl with wild rabbit or hare why not try Cahors from south west France. The strong taste of the wine conferred by the strong tannin and flavour of the Malbec black grapes goes well with game. It is best to let your Cahors mature for a few years before drinking.
https://www.frenchentree.com/living-in-france/wine/the-black-wine-of-cahors/
If you are making a sea-food cawl why not try a white Bordeaux or an Albariño from northern Spain or an Alvarinho from Portugal.
https://www.nytimes.com/2014/12/17/dining/wine-review-white-bordeaux.html
https://www.bbcgoodfood.com/glossary/albari%C3%B1o
http://www.marksandspencer.com/tercius-alvarinho-case-of-6/p/p60042772
Here is my recipe for cawl made with bacon. I have got no time for quoting weights.
Chop up enough smoked bacon, or use ready chopped lardons, with more than sufficient for the numbers dining.
Likewise, chop up some potatoes.
Chop up some carrots.
Chop up a couple of leeks.
Slice up some greens or cabbage.
Chop up some swede and /or turnips
Slice some parsnips to taste ( I don't usually use parsnips).
Use a cast iron pot with a lid.
Grease the bottom of the poth and lightly fry the bacon.
When the bacon is cooked add a glass of water.
Add the vegetables to the meat add more water to fill up the pot and bring the cawl to the boil.
Add salt and pepper to taste.
Stir the pot.
I also add lemon juice and honey to taste. In the olden days they would not have used lemon juice but cider vinegar would have been available and could be used today.
Use a meat stock - chicken or beef or bacon to taste.
I add juniper berries, cloves and cinnamon to taste. These were probably not used in the good old days.
After the cawl has been brought to the boil, simmer it for two hours or so. I pour some water into the depression of our "Le Creuset " lid to help reduce the temperature to stop all the fluid in the pot boiling away too quickly. I stir the pot again before refilling the lid.
Be careful if you make cawl with fish. It is probably best to add any fish towards the end of cooking because over cooked fish will end up looking and feeling rubbery and tough.
Serve the cawl piping hot into a large soup bowl. Add some Welsh cheese to taste or some English cheddar and eat the stew with some buttered brown bread.
Add to the leftovers the following day to enjoy your delicious soup once or twice again. I never get fed up of eating cawl as it is full of taste and goodness.
Enjoy.
Monday, 14 August 2017
Moroccan Wine - Sidi Zahia Vin Rouge AOG Beni M'tir
On our last trip to France we bought some Moroccan wine in Intermarche and it cost about 3 Eur a bottle.
For such a low price I was impressed our bottle of blended non-vintage Sidi Zahia tasted really good and it was exceptional value for money. The wine was Appellation D'Origine Garantie from Beni M'tir which is in the hills above Fez.
Moroccan wine producers learnt a lot about wine making from the French who planted vines in the sandy soils in the hills of Northern Morocco. The sandy soils protected the vines from the Phylloxera insect pests that ravaged Europe in the late 19th Century.
Sidi Zahia is a light body red wine made from black grape varieties common to Southern France. The wine is fruity and well balanced for tannin, acidity and sugar content. It is rather reminiscent of wines from the Languedoc but it has a flavour of its own.
We drank the wine with Merguez sausages from France and it went well with the spice. The wine would go down well with any grilled meat.
I would gladly have paid 6 or 7 Eur for this wine. It competes well with standard French wine. It also competes more than favourably with English red wines costing 10 pounds or more. It just goes to show how a favourable climate is conducive to quality wine production. The English climate still has a long way to go before English red wine makers can compete with Mediterranean producers.
Three cheers for Intermarche and their wine expert club. At about 3 Eur a bottle why not buy some Moroccan wine when you are in France next. Drink it at a barbecue for what passes for an English summer, it is so cheap you have got nothing to lose.
For such a low price I was impressed our bottle of blended non-vintage Sidi Zahia tasted really good and it was exceptional value for money. The wine was Appellation D'Origine Garantie from Beni M'tir which is in the hills above Fez.
Moroccan wine producers learnt a lot about wine making from the French who planted vines in the sandy soils in the hills of Northern Morocco. The sandy soils protected the vines from the Phylloxera insect pests that ravaged Europe in the late 19th Century.
Sidi Zahia is a light body red wine made from black grape varieties common to Southern France. The wine is fruity and well balanced for tannin, acidity and sugar content. It is rather reminiscent of wines from the Languedoc but it has a flavour of its own.
We drank the wine with Merguez sausages from France and it went well with the spice. The wine would go down well with any grilled meat.
I would gladly have paid 6 or 7 Eur for this wine. It competes well with standard French wine. It also competes more than favourably with English red wines costing 10 pounds or more. It just goes to show how a favourable climate is conducive to quality wine production. The English climate still has a long way to go before English red wine makers can compete with Mediterranean producers.
Three cheers for Intermarche and their wine expert club. At about 3 Eur a bottle why not buy some Moroccan wine when you are in France next. Drink it at a barbecue for what passes for an English summer, it is so cheap you have got nothing to lose.
Wednesday, 26 July 2017
Blind Tasting Competitions- Good fun unless you lose
I think that wine tasting competitions are a complete waste of time. The object of a wine tasting is to determine the quality of the wine and its fitness for purpose. Can the wine be kept for several years to improve in the bottle? Is the wine a true investment wine? Should the wine really only be drunk with food. Is the wine a fake? You also want to find out if the wine is good value for money.
https://www.thedrinksbusiness.com/2016/10/chinese-blind-tasting-team-claims-shock-victory/
A blind tasting is organised to make sure that the power of suggestion and brand reputation is eliminated from the taster's judgement. It should not be a competition to determine who is best as guessing where a wine comes from, what grapes it is made of and the year it was produced etc. You can easily find out this information from the bottle so why put yourself to all that trouble?
There are literally tens of thousands of different wines. If you try and show off how knowledgeable and skillful you are then you can easily become a cropper in a blind tasting.
I know only one of the wines tasted in the competition - the Jurançon from Domaine Cauhapé: this wine is top quality. We have friends who live in the area which we visit regularly. My wife and I would have difficulty distinguishing this wine from other top quality wines from Jurançon. It would be down more to luck than judgement.
Under wine tasting or examination conditions stress can play tricks on you. On my wine courses I got acquainted with a professional wine taster who was spot on, when blind tasting in the classroom, but who confused port with a fortified wine from Australia under examination conditions.
Wine tasting competitions are good fun and help with publicity. They are not to be taken seriously.
https://www.thedrinksbusiness.com/2016/10/chinese-blind-tasting-team-claims-shock-victory/
A blind tasting is organised to make sure that the power of suggestion and brand reputation is eliminated from the taster's judgement. It should not be a competition to determine who is best as guessing where a wine comes from, what grapes it is made of and the year it was produced etc. You can easily find out this information from the bottle so why put yourself to all that trouble?
There are literally tens of thousands of different wines. If you try and show off how knowledgeable and skillful you are then you can easily become a cropper in a blind tasting.
I know only one of the wines tasted in the competition - the Jurançon from Domaine Cauhapé: this wine is top quality. We have friends who live in the area which we visit regularly. My wife and I would have difficulty distinguishing this wine from other top quality wines from Jurançon. It would be down more to luck than judgement.
Under wine tasting or examination conditions stress can play tricks on you. On my wine courses I got acquainted with a professional wine taster who was spot on, when blind tasting in the classroom, but who confused port with a fortified wine from Australia under examination conditions.
Wine tasting competitions are good fun and help with publicity. They are not to be taken seriously.
Tuesday, 11 July 2017
Anyone for a white port and tonic?
There is supposed to a new trend for a summer drink of white port and tonic. All sorts of trendy people are supposed to be raving about it.
http://www.instyle.co.uk/lifestyle/white-port-tonic-london-drink-of-the-summer
Up until this summer most people couldn't have cared less about white port. White port never excited my taste buds and I refuse to get excited because something is trendy. Just because Portugal is a lovely place to go it does not mean that white port is a wonderful drink: it is not and it is not improved by adding tonic water to it.
What next, will Babycham comeback into fashion?
http://www.babycham.com/
London is a "hip" capital but that fact does not make jellied eels any more palatable. Why not wash down a plate of jellied eels with some white port and tonic? In this way you can be a real double trend setter.
The only mixed wine based drink that I can stand is sangria, in Spain, and then only after a decade or so of a break.
If you want to drink a really good white wine from Portugal, why not try a glass of cool alvarinho
straight and untainted by additions. It may not be trendy but you won't regret it and you will show that you are a wine drinker of distinction.
http://www.winesofportugal.com/en/food-and-wine/grape-varieties/white/alvarinho/
http://www.instyle.co.uk/lifestyle/white-port-tonic-london-drink-of-the-summer
Up until this summer most people couldn't have cared less about white port. White port never excited my taste buds and I refuse to get excited because something is trendy. Just because Portugal is a lovely place to go it does not mean that white port is a wonderful drink: it is not and it is not improved by adding tonic water to it.
What next, will Babycham comeback into fashion?
http://www.babycham.com/
London is a "hip" capital but that fact does not make jellied eels any more palatable. Why not wash down a plate of jellied eels with some white port and tonic? In this way you can be a real double trend setter.
The only mixed wine based drink that I can stand is sangria, in Spain, and then only after a decade or so of a break.
If you want to drink a really good white wine from Portugal, why not try a glass of cool alvarinho
straight and untainted by additions. It may not be trendy but you won't regret it and you will show that you are a wine drinker of distinction.
http://www.winesofportugal.com/en/food-and-wine/grape-varieties/white/alvarinho/
Monday, 12 June 2017
People rate wines higher if given elaborate descriptions
"The Independent" newspaper has published this rather interesting article which deserves to be read.
http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/food-and-drink/wines-elaborate-descriptions-taste-better-appear-study-labels-a7776966.html.
This short article confirms my suspicion that the power of suggestion has an undue influence on the opinion of a wine. If a wine is elaborately described with positive comments about its flavour, smell and structure, along with exciting descriptions about the location of the vineyard etc. then it will be rated more favourably than the same wine tasted under "blind" conditions. The same applies when a wine is believed to be more expensive than the same wine tasted under "blind" conditions. All this is a marketing ploy.
This same principle applies to the other industries especially the hi-fi industry and the cosmetics industry. This is why some hi-fi manufactures can sell enthusiasts cables, which cost thousands of pounds per metre, that do not perform any better than well constructed ordinary cables which costs no more than a few pounds per metre. They have no scientific evidence to back up their claims. No results of peer reviewed double blind listening tests are ever revealed to the public.
I was once in a cosmetics shop in France with my wife. Part of the advertising campaign was for a face lifting cream which would defy the laws of gravity. Newton and Einstein might have had something to say about that but such claims are believed and make cosmetic manufacturers a fortune for creams and lotions that are produced in huge vats in a factory for a few pence a litre. Once again, no results of peer reviewed double blind tests are ever revealed to the public.
I have probably been a victim of the power of suggestion regarding wine myself. But, after attending wine courses and blind tastings I have taught myself to do my best to ignore the power of suggestion, and I endeavour to do this is these pages to the best of my ability. I also endeavour not to be prejudiced. If you do not take an objective and scientific approach to wine tasting and selection you can quite easily be fooled into buying a wine that is not worth the money - caveat emptor.
http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/food-and-drink/wines-elaborate-descriptions-taste-better-appear-study-labels-a7776966.html.
This short article confirms my suspicion that the power of suggestion has an undue influence on the opinion of a wine. If a wine is elaborately described with positive comments about its flavour, smell and structure, along with exciting descriptions about the location of the vineyard etc. then it will be rated more favourably than the same wine tasted under "blind" conditions. The same applies when a wine is believed to be more expensive than the same wine tasted under "blind" conditions. All this is a marketing ploy.
This same principle applies to the other industries especially the hi-fi industry and the cosmetics industry. This is why some hi-fi manufactures can sell enthusiasts cables, which cost thousands of pounds per metre, that do not perform any better than well constructed ordinary cables which costs no more than a few pounds per metre. They have no scientific evidence to back up their claims. No results of peer reviewed double blind listening tests are ever revealed to the public.
I was once in a cosmetics shop in France with my wife. Part of the advertising campaign was for a face lifting cream which would defy the laws of gravity. Newton and Einstein might have had something to say about that but such claims are believed and make cosmetic manufacturers a fortune for creams and lotions that are produced in huge vats in a factory for a few pence a litre. Once again, no results of peer reviewed double blind tests are ever revealed to the public.
I have probably been a victim of the power of suggestion regarding wine myself. But, after attending wine courses and blind tastings I have taught myself to do my best to ignore the power of suggestion, and I endeavour to do this is these pages to the best of my ability. I also endeavour not to be prejudiced. If you do not take an objective and scientific approach to wine tasting and selection you can quite easily be fooled into buying a wine that is not worth the money - caveat emptor.
Tuesday, 30 May 2017
Le Domaine de Trépaloup Mourvèdre 2015 Pay's D'Oc
On a recent trip to the South of France we discovered some wonderful wines from Le Domaine de Trépaloup. The vineyards are located about 30 miles north of Montpellier in the village of Saint Clément near the small town of Sommières. The scenery is lovely in this area and the soil and climate are so well suited to viticulture.
Since 2002 Rémi et Laurent Vandôme have been making the finest wines using organic or bio-dynamic techniques. The Domaine produces Appellation d'Origine Protégée Languedoc wines within its range. The Mourvèdre 2015 dry red is, however, of Vin de Pays status but this does not detract from its quality. This wine is a fruity red which can be consumed on its own or with food:preferably. It is perfectly balanced for tannin, acidity, sweetness, fruit flavour and body and it rests long on the palate.
The wine is superb value for money. I doubt that you would ever find this wine in the export markets or even in French supermarkets or wine merchants outside of the area. You really have no choice but to go to the region, and there are plenty of flights to Montpellier. Just allow yourself a little time to explore the surroundings to take in some sun and good food as well as perfect wine.
http://www.domainetrepaloup.com/
http://www.montpellier-france.com/
Since 2002 Rémi et Laurent Vandôme have been making the finest wines using organic or bio-dynamic techniques. The Domaine produces Appellation d'Origine Protégée Languedoc wines within its range. The Mourvèdre 2015 dry red is, however, of Vin de Pays status but this does not detract from its quality. This wine is a fruity red which can be consumed on its own or with food:preferably. It is perfectly balanced for tannin, acidity, sweetness, fruit flavour and body and it rests long on the palate.
The wine is superb value for money. I doubt that you would ever find this wine in the export markets or even in French supermarkets or wine merchants outside of the area. You really have no choice but to go to the region, and there are plenty of flights to Montpellier. Just allow yourself a little time to explore the surroundings to take in some sun and good food as well as perfect wine.
http://www.domainetrepaloup.com/
http://www.montpellier-france.com/
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