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| Hostellerie Le Vert |
Cahors: special wine touring report now available
You can get my special Cahors wine touring supplement as a PDF file, featuring all three parts of my Malbec road-trip trilogy posted on French Mediterranean Wine earlier this year, plus bonus winery profiles from this exciting region of south-west France (and any other recent in-depth features produced in this format). Yours condensed into a neat 20 page mini-mag PDF delivered by email: buy it for £3 - these specials are not free2view. Click on the title link above to find the PayPal buttons! UPDATED NOV. 2015: ten new organic wine estate profiles added.
This first tantalizing instalment reporting from once-upon-a-time a little downtrodden but now groovy again Cahors, in deepest southwest France ("home of Malbec" as it likes to dub itself, with a certain amount of justification...), features three dynamic estates: Château Les Croisille, Château Combel La Serre and Château Tour de Miraval. I met Germain Croisille and Julien Ilbert from the first two over dinner at Hotel Le Terminus (opposite Cahors town rail station) in their highly recommended restaurant Le Balandre (links to site), where we tasted, talked and ate well. And I encountered Evelyne Demeaux-Lévy (pic.) from Tour de Miraval the following day in similar circumstances 'across the table'...
Get the full report to read on - follow the link at the top for payment...
Watch out for my further adventures of 'desperately seeking Malbec' in Cahors; featuring Châteaux du Cayrou, Famaey, Métairie Grande du Théron, Latuc (links to Part 2); and in Part 3 here: Haute-Serre, La Caminade, Armandiere, La Capelle Cabanac, La Bérangeraie, Clos Troteligotte and Vino Valie/Les Bouysses among others. Plus more restaurant and wine travel tips...
These wine tasting events and courses, which I'm planning to run in Belfast in the first half of next year, are now up on the Wine Education Service website (link takes you there); including our Classic Wines of Southern France course. So get booking now to have some fun in 2013 tasting and learning about wine... or buy one as an alternative Christmas gift for a wine loving friend or family member! Essential Wine Tasting 5 week course £125 five sessions
Tuesday evenings Feb 5, 12, 19, 26 and March 5.
Tuesday evenings April 23, 30 and May 7, 14 and 21.
Classic Wines of Southern France 5 week course £150 five sessions
Tuesday evenings March 12, 19, 26 and April 2 & 9.
Classic Grape Varieties 5 week course £150 five sessions
Tuesday evenings May 28 and June 4, 11, 18 and 25.
One-day workshops Saturdays £75 for the day including lunch (and wine).
Tutored tastings Thursday evenings
March 28 Classic Grape Varieties - £30
May 30 Wines of Spain - £30
June 27 Champagne & Sparkling Wines - £35
Book these three tastings with Paypal:
Overview and booking for courses and one-day workshops on the WES Belfast web page HERE. Or go back to the homepage from there for details of wine courses and tastings running in London, Manchester, Aberdeen and other UK cities.
These wine tasting events and courses, which I'm planning to run in Belfast in the first half of next year, are now up on the Wine Education Service website (link takes you there). So get booking now to have some fun in 2013 tasting and learning about wine... or buy one as an alternative Christmas gift for a wine loving friend or family member!
Essential Wine Tasting 5 week course £125 five sessions
Tuesday evenings Feb 5, 12, 19, 26 and March 5.
Tuesday evenings April 23, 30 and May 7, 14 and 21.
Classic Wines of Southern France 5 week course £150 five sessions
Tuesday evenings March 12, 19, 26 and April 2 & 9.
Classic Grape Varieties 5 week course £150 five sessions
Tuesday evenings May 28 and June 4, 11, 18 and 25.
One-day workshops Saturdays £75 for the day including lunch (and wine).
Tutored tastings Thursday evenings
March 28 Classic Grape Varieties - £30
May 30 Wines of Spain - £30
June 27 Champagne & Sparkling Wines - £35
Book these three tastings with Paypal:
Overview and booking for courses and one-day workshops on the WES Belfast web page HERE. Or go back to the homepage from there for details of wine courses and tastings running in London, Manchester, Aberdeen and other UK cities.
YOU CAN NOW SUBSCRIBE (click there or on the Paypal button on the right) TO MY TWO WINE BLOGS USING PAYPAL FOR JUST £10 A YEAR (approx $17 or €12.50)! AND ADVERTISING HERE NOW ONLY COSTS £100 FOR 12 MONTHS (or equivalent in $/€). Go for it!
I recently rediscovered and have just re-posted a rather nice Rioja blast from the past entitled "a tutored tasting of CVNE and Contino old and rare Riojas by winemaker Jesús Madrazo Mateo," (click there to view it) originally scribbled in 2001. Includes (at times slightly surreal) notes on elderly Viña Real and Imperial Gran Reserva reds and Contino Reservas with vintages going back to 1952. But quite a few from the best years of the 70s, 80s and 90s; as well as "an oddball finale" from 1939... Enjoy a little retro Rioja chic! Mind you, one or two of them were towards dodgy though.
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Bungener family
with all-singing all-dancing dog. |
Henri Bungener has been running his 12-hectare (30 acre) vineyard organically since 1989, which is located all in one secluded sheltered spot up in the hills on the wild-side slopes of the Dentelles de Montmirail. You'll eventually find Clos de Caveau a couple of kilometres out of the little village of Vacqueyras (see closdecaveau.com for directions), which is about 25 miles north of Avignon and 15 miles east of Orange. And handily enough, they also own three different-sized holiday gites on or near the property if you fancy taking in a bit of fresh air and sunshine in the middle of Provencal nowhere. Henri's Vacqueyras reds are made from about two-thirds Grenache, one-third Syrah; and apparently are available in Switzerland, Germany, USA, UK, Belgium, Netherlands, Denmark, Sweden, Canada, China, Singapore, Taiwan and Japan. That's useful then!
2008 Fruit Sauvage (Grenache, Syrah) - perhaps a tad past it and lean but it does have hints of nice savoury vs 'sweet' fruit still lurking underneath. €6.30 ex-cellars.
2009 Carmin Brillant (Grenache, Syrah) - aromatic ripe fruity nose, very firm yet peppery and has good depth of fruit, a touch extracted though in the end perhaps. €8.70 ex-cellars.
2007 Lao Muse (Grenache, Syrah) - smoky notes with a hint of oak too, concentrated maturing fruit showing lovely 'sweet/savoury' style and peppery edges, firm and gutsy vs delicious fruit. €18 ex-cellars.
There's a feature I wrote HERE on Chile's love/hate affair with Carmenere, or Carmenère to give it its French accent, told from leading winery De Martino's perspective about their trials, tribulations and eventual success with this quirky variety adopted more or less by accident. As that piece touches on, DNA tests in the early 1990s confirmed that much of what was believed to be Merlot was actually Carmenère, a once fairly common variety in Bordeaux before the phylloxera bug invasion destroyed vineyards in the 19th Century, but was never widely replanted. So, to cut a no doubt long story short, it ended up in Chile the following century when people brought over cuttings and seedlings of 'Merlot' presumably.
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Header image: Château de Flandry, Limoux, Languedoc. Background: Vineyard near Terrats in Les Aspres, Roussillon.
