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Showing posts with label Château de l'Ou. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Château de l'Ou. Show all posts

17 May 2012

Roussillon: Château de l'Ou update

Click on this highlighted link to view my earlier profile of Château de l'Ou (2008) plus a few previous vintages tasting-noted.
The Bourrier family's vineyards have happily expanded taking in a couple of plots up near Caudiès and St. Paul in the Fenouillèdes zone, which is found northwest of their Montescot base in the central Roussillon, as Séverine B updated me at this year's Millésime Bio wine fair held in Montpellier. This brings their total surface area to 32 organically farmed hectares (= 80 acres no less); organic since the late 90s in fact. They've launched the 2010s of some top new varietal wines and now have a website too, where I copied the rocky photo from: www.chateau-de-lou.fr.
2011 Côtes du Roussillon white (mostly Grenache blanc + Roussanne) – yeast-lees notes add a little intensity vs roundness to its attractive profile, has nice crisp finish too. €8.50 cellar door.
2010 Infiniment white (Chardonnay) – toasty edges with lees notes vs juicy fruity, quite rich mouth-feel vs refreshing bite too. Good but dear at €16.50.
2009 Côtes du Roussillon red (Syrah, Grenache, Mourvèdre) – fruity and spicy with black cherry, liquorice and pepper vs hints of background oak and light grip on the palate; attractive mix of nice and easy vs a bit more serious as well. €8.50
2010 Infiniment red (Syrah, 14.5% alc) – lush and chocolatey although not too much oak, structured concentrated and powerful vs lovely ripe fruit and balance. Very good. €16.50

31 January 2008

Roussillon: Château de l'Ou, Montescot

Château de l'Ou

Philippe Bourrier has 24 organically farmed (for ten years) hectares (60 acres) of vines with two more close to being officially certified. L'Ou's wines, which I think means egg in Catalan (which does feature on some of their labels so could be a good guess), are sold about 50-50 in France and abroad - email them for more details if you're interested in trying them in your neck of the woods. Yet another Roussillon estate I haven't got around to visiting, but I've tried their wines and met the people on a few occasions (wines below gleaned from two Millésime Bio events: click here for more on the 2006 edition) and find them pretty good overall. You'll find the Bourriers in-situ just out of the quiet village (like most of them around here) of Montescot, off the main road heading for Elne or Argeles.

This first one was gleaned from this year's Millésime Bio wine fair (Perpignan Jan. 2008):
2006 Côtes du Roussillon rouge (mostly Syrah Grenache) - nice tart black cherry fruit with spicy liquorice edges; grippy coating of tannins with powerful finish, closes up a little but shows promise. 88-90

And in 2006:

2002 L'Harmonie (Syrah, Grenache & Carignan) - soft and forward, mature fruit set against more structured finish; good for 2002. 85+
2005 Côtes du Roussillon (from barrique) (Syrah & Grenache) - shows lovely depth of black fruits and spices, long elegant finish; promising. 87-90

LATEST L'OU HERE (updated May 2012)


Domaine du Lac, 66200 Montescot.
Tel: 04 68 54 68 67, chateaudelou66@orange.fr.

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Header image: Château de Flandry, Limoux, Languedoc. Background: Vineyard near Terrats in Les Aspres, Roussillon.