Languedoc: Le Prieuré Saint Sever

A winemaking consultancy team called Natolix headed up by Jean Natoli, who created the well-regarded www.oenoconseil.fr, had a stand at this year's Vinisud wine show in Montpellier, where they lined up a wide selection of their clients' wines on tasting. They work with some of the leading estates in the Languedoc, and I've picked one of my favourites below with a bit of info about this equally well-known estate winery. It may or may not be worth adding that I found a few others, which didn't exactly set the world alight or were a bit heavy-handed on the winemaking front with some of the wines swamped in chocolatey new oak. And one particular white was corked but already sampled, rather inexcusable considering the stand was full of highly qualified winemakers who should have checked every bottled opened... Anyway, enough of the cheeky telling-off, here's one of their seductive reds:


Le Prieuré Saint Sever


Thierry Rodriguez is a winemaker and broker specialising in sourcing top end Languedoc wines for export and also owns Mas Gabinèle, a 10 hectare (25 acre) vineyard in the Faugères appellation, and a rather smart-looking holiday gite too.
2007 Basalte cuvée Stratagème Coteaux du Languedoc (Syrah Grenache) - rich dark colour and fruit profile, perfumed herbal and mineral in style with bitter chocolate and fig undertones; subtle length and freshness too, again somewhat different and rather good although not for everyone this one. €9 90-92

Campagne de Veyran, 34490 Causses et Veyran. Tel: 04 67 89 71 72, www.prieuresaintsever.com.