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15 September 2010

Languedoc: Domaine Virgile Joly, Saint-Saturnin

Virgile Joly, with several years grape-growing and winemaking under his belt working at a few leading estates in France and Chile, founded his own winery in 2000. Starting out with just one hectare (2.5 acres) in the Saint-Saturnin area on the edge of the Larzac hills, the estate grew bigger the following year coupled with him fully implementing organic farming methods. It's now nearly 10 ha in size planted with white and red Grenache, Syrah, Carignan and Cinsault (plus a couple of quirky unexpected varieties for their odd but nice liqueur wine: see below). Virgile's different vine-plots lie around three villages on pebbly slopes at between 100m and 400m above sea level. I met him and his Polish wife Magdalena in mid September 2010 at their harvest party in the winery, when they also test-drove the Vinolodge "prototype" to be launched next year: more on that here .

2008 Saturne white (Grenache blanc) - zesty green fruit with light peppery tones vs fuller juicier mouth-feel; attractive subtle and quite fresh length. Served a bit warm and probably time to move on to the 09, but nice enough style. 85
2009 Le Joly rosé (GrenacheSyrah) - attractive mix of creamy red fruits vs crunchy and crisp texture, a bit of oomph too (14.5%!) but it's not out of balance amazingly. Rosé for food and thought. 85+
2008 Le Joly Languedoc red (Syrah, Grenache, Cinsault, Carignan) - enticing liquorice and white pepper aromas; "sweet" vs dry mouth-feel with a touch of punch, fairly easy going and refreshing too actually, for a red. 85+

2007 Saturne red (Grenache, Syrah, Carignan, Cinsault) - peculiar earthy herbal red pepper notes (unripe? reduced?), powerful palate then slightly bitter finish. Not sure.

2003 Virgile red (Grenache, Syrah, Carignan) - mature nose with liquorice and leather, spicy pruney and dried fruit aromas/flavours too; dark and rich mouthful, powerful with dry tannins vs attractive savoury finish. Good stuff for a heatwave 2003. 87-89
2004 Virgile white (Grenache blanc) - surprisingly good still with its old nutty Burgundy charm vs oily Riesling characters! Rounded mouth-feel with lightly toasted and hazelnut notes, quite lush vs a touch of fresh acidity underneath. 87-89
2004 Carthagène Vin de liqueur rosé (ChasselasServantCinsault, Syrah) - odd elderflower wine / old tawny Port combo, pink flowers and perfumed cherries; quite rich caramelised / oxidised with tangy vs punchy palate, sweet floral vs aged notes. Strange but nice! 87
These wines are available in wooden gift-boxes via their website (rather dear though).

Oct. 2011 UPDATE: click here for a note on their 2005 Virgile white.
And his latest vintages are discussed and tasted HERE (posted Dec. 2012)

22 rue du portail, 34725 Saint-Saturnin de Lucian. Tel: 04 67 44 52 21, www.domainevirgilejoly.com.


Languedoc: Château des Estanilles, Faugères

Château des Estanilles
New kid on the block Julien Seydoux (pic. right, obviously, next to the previous owner) is quite laid-back considering what he's taken on, an exciting-potential Faugères winery / 35 ha (85 acre) estate; with a little help from its well-established vineyard and name. He told me his philosophy wasn't so different from previous owner Michel Louison, although in the vineyard Julien's already on the way to organic certification and has been implementing changes in the cellar as well. "I'm getting rid of 70 barriques this year replacing them with more demi-muids (a larger 450 to 600 litre cask) for the malo-lactic fermentation and small wooden vats for the Grenache," he explained. "I'm not interested in making "natural wines" as such, as I want to be sure the wines will all age well with no unexpected problems. But I do go for minimum intervention after fermentation and using as little SO2 as possible." All sounds reasonable to me.
Julien also took me for a hairy spin up the steep (and rather muddy/slippery on that rainy mid-June day) south-facing Clos du Fou vineyard (runs up to 300m/1000ft), which Louison compactly planted with Syrah, much to the amazement of the locals at the time ("he must be mad" type comments hence the name), where you get a grand view of the vine-scape around Lenthéric. Julien exports to the UK (Terroir Languedoc and Yapp Bros) and Denmark, the Netherlands, Germany, Canada and Japan - see website for more info. A few notes on his wines follow - well, mostly his predecessor's actually as Julien only took the place over last year... As I said, I went there in June 2010, talked and tasted.


2007 Faugères blanc (Marsanne, Roussanne) - oily nutty maturing nose; rounded and mealy palate with aromatic floral honey flavours too, fair weight vs a touch mineral on the finish. Captivating little number. 85
2008 Le Rosé M (mostly Mourvèdre 15% alc. oak-aged!) - rather toasty and punchy, oily texture vs crisp bite vs alcohol vs toasted chocolate flavours. Odd but why not I s'pose. Not sure if Julien's going to carry on with this quirky style: he already does a classic unoaked rosé, which we didn't taste for some reason.
2007 Faugères Tradition (1/5 each Syrah, Grenache, Mourvèdre, Cinsault, Carignan 14% alc.) - ripe maturing and smoky with dominant black cherry notes; attractively lush and ripe mouth-feel with peppery vs "sweet/savoury" edges, light bitter twist and dry grip. €6 85+
2005 Faugères Prestige (Grenache, Syrah, Mourvèdre 14.5% alc.) - complex "cheesy" tones underpinned by subtle vanilla oak and dark berry fruits; smoky and rich vs grippy and structured, touch of coco/choc tannins yet quite dry and austere still; has power, weight and richness to finish though. €9.50 87+
2007 Grande Cuvée (mostly Syrah 14.5% alc.) - lightly toasted chocolate again although it's pretty rich; "rubbery" oak dominates to start vs concentrated blackberry and cherry, punchy mouth-feel then tight firm and grippy with chocolate tannins on top; a touch extracted maybe but has lots of nice fruit too, taut and long vs big and textured. Needs time still. €16.50 88-90
2003 Grande Cuvée - more savoury and developed vs ripe cassis with herby edges; quite big and grippy with powerful streak, sweet vs dry texture; a bit too much vanilla/cloves/cinnamon still present from the oak vs chunky and concentrated finish. Not sure if it'll improve much, it's big and impressive but a bit forced and out of balance. 87
2006 Le Clos du Fou (Syrah 14.5% alc.) - showing quite a lot of smoky new oak still but it's lush and concentrated with much nicer tannins than above; still very structured and tight with better balance of power and wood texture vs "sweet/savoury" richness underneath. Wow. €24 90+

Lenthéric, 34480 Cabrerolles. Tel: 04 67 902 925, www.chateau-estanilles.com.

Château des Estanilles

New Languedoc "profile" on FrenchMedWine.com: Château des Estanilles in Faugères, taken over by Julien Seydoux last year, with seven wine reviews. Click here to go there!

14 September 2010

"Sud de France" now in London


Nothing to do with climate change, but a couple of "South of France" wine & food events coming up this weekend. First, there's a Sud de France market this Friday 17th September in Cavendish Square (London W1) in front of the Maison de la Région Languedoc-Roussillon, where you can taste a nice variety of wines from the region and sample olive oils, savoury snacks and biscuits. Wines worth checking out include sparkling Limoux from Sieur d'Arques in the seafood bar, Gérard Bertrand, Skalli, Sainte Cécile du Parc, Mont Tauch (all Languedoc), Domaine du Traginer, Château de Péna and La Coume du Roy (Roussillon - profiles on my other blog). If you miss that, there's another market on Saturday 18th in Duke of York Square, Chelsea. Both part of the "SdF" festival running until 30th September around London: more info @ festival-suddefrance.com. Photo from traginer.fr: profile on JF Deu (bottom right on his mobile!) on FMW, and why not taste his wines at the festival...

09 September 2010

Fizz of the moment: Royal Seyssel Brut

Obscure fizz of the moment perhaps: I had to do a google search to get the low-down on this bottle, lonely and neglected as it was on my local supermarket's dusty bottom shelf. Made by Varichon & Clerc from the Altesse variety in the not very well-known (!) Seyssel wine appellation nestling on the Rhone on the way up to the Alps in the Savoy region, this 2004 vintage has 12% alc. and was about €7.50 (latest vintages are dearer). What a find: vintage Champers, eat your heart out. This stuff was tasty and complex with lovely balance of toasty oat-cakey richness, maturing oily texture and refreshingly clean lively and elegant finish. Another quick search on the net also revealed plenty of stockists in the UK and US. Some useful info on this fizz brand can be found on Wink Lorch's blog here, a semi-resident Savoy wine (and Jura actually) knowledgeable person, and @ lambert-de-seyssel.com (the brand owner) where I pinched the picture from.

26 August 2010

Pink of the moment: M&S Cape rosé

2009 Cape rosé from Breedekloof region, South Africa, made by Nicolaas Rust (14%) - quite full-on style with rounded oily mouth-feel and underlying "sweet" red berry and cherry fruit; smooth and fairly easy (with food anyway, a bit punchy on its own perhaps) with attractive and off-dry finish. £4.29 Marks & Spencer.

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