"Order my book on the Roussillon wine region (colour paperback) DIRECT FROM ME SAVING £4/€4 (UK & EU only), or Kindle eBook on Amazon UK. Available in the USA from Barnes & Noble in hardcover, paperback or eBook; or Amazon.com. For other countries, tap here." Richard Mark James

25 June 2012

Roussillon: Domaine Carle-Courty, Millas

Véronique and Frédéric Carle set up shop, vines and cellar in 1995, leaving their legal and accounting careers happily behind them (still, must be handy experience for getting to grips with local wine politics, admin and economics!), up on the slopes of the Força Réal hill overlooking Millas and other surrounding villages (over 500 metres altitude or about 1550 feet). Twelve out of 15 grape-producing (rather than cats...) hectares (they've been planting more Grenache 'black' and 'grey', as they say in French) have been organic since 2002. Força Réal is a stunning spot and great vantage point to take in the lie of the land of parcelled vineyards, olive groves, wild woodland and rocky outcrops around here. There's a signposted route off the Estagel road leading up to one of those view and info points; and a couple of other estates worth checking out up here too: Domaine Força-Réal and Domaine Boucabeille (profile and wine notes to follow).

2009 Camps Bernats Côtes du Roussillon white (Roussanne, Macabeu, Grenache gris) - quite toasty vs nicely oily and rich, attractive peachy fruit too with creamy and nutty finish. Good stuff, mature now.
2011 Arbosseres rosé (mostly Syrah + Grenache) - full-on colour and red fruity style, quite rich and rounded vs crisp finish. Nice foodie rosé.
2009 Cuvée Marion Côtes du Roussillon red (Syrah, Grenache, Carignan, Mourvèdre) - enticing dark fruit tinged with subtle oak, punchy and grippy mouth-feel vs lush and ripe, concentrated too. Very good.
2008 Cuvée Quentin Côtes du Roussillon Villages (more Syrah, Grenache, Carignan, Mourvèdre) - richer smokier and a tad toastier, concentrated and powerful with solid firm backdrop, closes up on the long finish. Fairly wow.


Photo copied from www.sud-de-france.com, as they don't appear to have their own site yet; but you can email them on domaine.carlecourty@orange.fr if you wanted to call in and taste or find out where to get their wines. These four were tasted at this year's Millésime Bio wine show in Montpellier, where I talked to Frédéric.

France: the Southwest has moved...

Southwest France (Cahors, Madiran, Gascony & Armagnac, Bergerac etc.) has been teleported across to my other blog frenchmediterraneanwine.com (goes to SW archive page on that site) lock stock and barrels; and Bordeaux has now been too. Not very "Mediterranean" I know, but these wines, winemakers and wine-lands arguably have something in common with the broader South (sunshine? Doh.) than with genteel Bordeaux, although I've moved that region over there too to refocus everything French in one place (eventually)...

19 June 2012

Languedoc: Gérard Bertrand update, La Clape

These two tasty Gérard Bertrand 2010 reds, from his estate winery up in the wild-scented La Clape wine-lands a stone's throw from Narbonne Plage (if you have a strong arm at least), were tasting-noted and ticked by yours truly in the Languedoc a few weeks ago...
L'Hospitalitas (mostly Mourvèdre and Syrah I think) - enticing garrigue aromas, those elusive wacky sunburned wild herb characters, combined with dark cherry, cassis and liquorice; has a touch of toasty chocolate oak too adding 'sweeter' texture (rather than swamping it) to its firm and long finish. Promising, very good.
Art de Vivre (Syrah Mourvèdre Grenache) - similar profile, shows less depth of fruit perhaps and is less rounded, although it was a bit closed up; still has that lovely wild aromatic Clape thing going on though. Good+


Previous GB wines, profiles and comments:
gerard bertrand grand vin with more links to more pages (including reviews of older vintages of the first red here).
Latest news gleaned from www.vitisphere.com: he's now set up a US import company with distribution handled by Southern Wine & Spirits, Glazer’s, Young’s Market and M.S. Walker.

Other recent stuff on La Clape:

18 June 2012

Italy: "whites of the moment"

Asda "Extra Special" Fiano
Asda has been making an effort with its Italian white wines stocking a few lesser-known ones from Sicily, the mainland south and north. A nutty floral example is their 2011 Extra Special Fiano (13% alcohol) made by Cantine Settosoli in Sicily, which offers great value and taste for a fiver on offer. Try their slightly more exotic 2011 Extra Special Falanghina (12.5%) from Puglia too, also from the deep south and £5 at the moment. Or 2011 Lugana (13%) from the Lake Garda area in the north, a little dearer at £6.98 but has plenty of flavour and style for the money. Lidl can surprise too if you look beyond Pinot Grigio, Soave et al: give their 2011 Vernaccia di San Gimignano (12.5%) a go for £4.99, an elegant zesty white from Tuscany.
Updated:
July 2012: Asda now has their 2011 Extra Special Gavi on promo for a fiver, a delicate floral citrus-y and lightly chalky-textured dry white from Piedmont in the northwest.
August 2012: Tesco has been punting out the Inycon "Limited Edition" 2010 Grillo (12.5% alc.) - another native Sicilian white variety and possibly the most exciting one wine-wise - for £4.49, which is definitely worth investing in with its towards exotic fruit and texture with yeast-lees edges and fresh dry bite.

Italy: Ciró, obscure "red of the mo"

Ah yes, Ciró, one of my favourite red tipples actually... While browsing Lidl Ireland's fairly limited Italian wine selection (apart from all the usual suspects) this weekend gone, I came across this mysterious bottle from Ciró in the Calabria region - that's Italy's 'toe' reaching out to give Sicily a kick. What a pleasant surprise too: it sounded vaguely familiar as something commendably obscure from the south, so I had to give it a go to take to a dinner party. Made from the local Gaglioppo grape variety, this 2009 Riserva weighed in at 13.5% alcohol with dense colour, rich earthy dried black cherry and raisin aromas / flavours with wild herb edges; smoky and lush with ripe dark fruit encased in attractive firm vs rounded tannins, lingering wild 'sweet' vs meaty finish.
€7.99 in Ireland, £5.99 on offer in Lidl UK stores. By the way, here's a fascinating "everything you need to know about..." page on About.com; or there's even a Ciró wine Facebook page.

15 June 2012

Southwest: Château Lacapelle Cabanac, Cahors


Updated Jan 2013 (see below).

I rather like Cahors and its Malbec based red wines, and I came across Château Lacapelle-Cabanac at this year's Millésime Bio organic wine show going back a few months. Owner-growers Philippe Vérax and Thierry Simon have been doing it organically since 2005, and their handsome 20 ha (50 acre) property is found in a microscopic village that shares the same name to the west of Cahors town. Their address is simply "le Château, Lacapelle-Cabanac..." Like that, shouldn't be too hard to find then. Their vineyards are planted on this area's distinctive chalky scrubland at 300 metres altitude (nearly 1000 feet), where there's also a bit of Merlot. More @ www.lacapelle-cabanac.com, where you'll find distributors in Europe, North America and Australia even.

2010 Tradition Cahors (80-20 Malbec-Merlot) - a touch reduced/baked on the nose, 'inky' and concentrated with meaty vs dark fruit combo, nice rounded tannins with rich vs crunchy vs peppery finish. Good in the end. €6.45 cellar door.
2007 Prestige Cahors (90-10 Malbec-Merlot, 14-18 months oak ageing) - toasty coconut notes and grainy texture, more concentrated though with grippy still structured mouth-feel vs developing savoury edges. Good+ €8.85.
2007 'Malbec XL' Cahors (100% Malbec, 2 years in oak) - showing lots of smoky bacon oak, rich extracted and concentrated palate; still surprisingly young and closed up, good but is that oak ever going to fully melt in? €13

UPDATE
I caught up with Philippe on a late autumn 2012 wine touring trip around the heart of Malbec country itself, at the 'Cahors Malbec Lounge', a groovy wine bar cum office for the producers' association in the town centre... Follow this links for tasters of my three-part report:
Cahors: Malbec roadtrip part 1 Château Les Croisille - Château Combel La Serre - Château Tour de Miraval (contains links to these posts):
Cahors: Malbec roadtrip part 2 - Châteaux du Cayrou, Famaey, Métairie Grande du Théron, Latuc.
Cahors: Malbec roadtrip part 3 - Châteaux Haute-Serre, La Caminade, Armandière...

Anyway, I (re)sampled these vintages of his three reds:
2011 Cahors (12.5%) - aromatic and crunchy red fruits, fresh and firm palate with nice elegant fruit, lighter style this vintage.
2007 Prestige - coconut overtones, rich and extracted, concentrated though with powerful grippy mouth-feel layered with maturing dark vs herby fruit; the oak has melted in a little, long firm finish.
2009 Malbec XL - dense dark colour, pretty coconut oaky vs rich ripe plum fruit with spicy herb edges, powerful and extracted with gripping structured palate, young and not very revealing; too much new oak though, he does like to extract! Try it again in a year or two... €14

Cahors: special wine touring report updated
November 2015 and September 2016.
You can now buy my special Cahors wine touring supplements as a huge French wine PDF magazine, featuring all three parts of my Malbec road trip trilogy originally posted on French Mediterranean Wine, plus bonus winery profiles from this exciting region of south-west France AND new profiles and notes on ten organic estates including Lacapelle-Cabanac's latest (added Nov. 2015). This is all now part of a bigger French e-magazine available as a PDF with lots of photos delivered by email OR as a Kindle e-book on Amazon - none of it is viewable on the blog. Click on the title link above to find that PayPal button or links to Amazon.

Cider: Aspall, Suffolk and McCann's, Co. Armagh

Tried a bottle of these two quite different ciders recently (when it was hot a couple of weeks ago...), both available at Asda stores. Aspall in Suffolk prefers ye oldie spelling of cyder, as this indeed old-fashioned style is pretty full-on with 7% alcohol and intensely appley yeasty flavour, crisp and dry vs fair body as I said. Made from organic apples too. Definitely a food cider I'd say, pork being the obvious dish that springs to mind although should also go well with mature or blue cheeses. £1.50 on offer. More @ www.aspall.co.uk.

Northern Ireland apple and pear growers and juice and cider maker P McCann and Sons are based in rural Co. Armagh: "the apple county of Ireland," according their website mccannapples.co.uk. This 6% alcohol "traditional country cider" is softer and 'fruitier' than Aspall's, nicely refreshing with again lovely appley flavour but has 'sweeter' edges (it's still quite dry though). £2 for a larger bottle.

Latest post on cider here:
Cider: Duché de Longueville 'Gros Oeillet', Normandy (June 2013):
"Another post in my occasional series on quality ciders that have crossed my apple-strewn path, which brings us to the curious Gros Oeillet variety mentioned in the title that I'm told makes up at least 90% of this "naturally sparkling craft cider." Funny enough, this means either 'big eyelet' in French, as in curtain rings, or 'large carnation', as in oversized buttonhole filler..." Click on the red title.

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