Roussillon: Clos du Rouge Gorge, Latour-de-France

Cyril Fhal landed in Latour land over ten years ago, having worked at two small estates in the Anjou and Saumur wine regions, where he became committed to the idea of working organically. He's one of now a dozen organic independent growers in the village (half of them are on this blog) and is known for putting in a good deal of painstaking hours in the vineyard, with the aim of enticing “very pure juice” from his grapes, as he put it. The 'Red Neck' vineyard comes to just six patchwork hectares (15 acres) of old vines (50 to 100 years old) on elevated rocky slopes dotted around Latour-de-France, half of which is senior-citizen Carignan nestling up against Grenache, Cinsault and Maccabeu. Cyril is in the “no or low sulphite” camp, and his wines do have some of those quirky 'natural' winemaking edges; but there's an elegant fresher side to them too with some intriguing tasty flavours. By the way, his 'young vines' red is apparently made from 25 year-old Grenache, which isn't very young in vine terms and perhaps gives you a glimpse of where he's coming from.

These (admittedly rather expensive) wines are available from Vine Trail in the UK - where I borrowed some of this info from, as it seems Cyril is far too busy, or wise perhaps, to have a website, blog or Facebook page; though I did meet him at last year's Real Wine Fair in London. The £GBP prices below are for a mixed case, €uros an average on-line price in France and $ price at Chambers Street Wines, NYC. Going there: 6 place Marcel Vié. Phone: 04 68 29 16 37, cyrilfhal@gmail.com.

2008 white Côtes Catalanes (Macabeu) – nutty appley lightly oxidised style, but this wine is tasty and quite long on the finish with an attractive mix of 'mineral' and rounded sensations. £18.25, €20
2010 Jeunes Vignes red Côtes Catalanes (Grenache) – light rustic-edged red, again has some of those apple/cider tones but is soft elegant and tasty in the end; quite light but it flows, man. Not great value @ £17.85, €18.50.
2007 Vieilles Vignes red Côtes Catalanes (mostly Carignan with Grenache) – similar profile on the nose but more concentrated with lush vs tarter blue fruit characters, grippy fresh palate yet has nice texture and interesting flavours. £23.50, €30, $33

Languedoc: Clos du Gravillas update

The latest from Nicole and John Bojanowski in St-Jean de Minervois is HERE, including a couple of new-ish wines: a white made from Terret gris and a 'Fino' style based on flor-aged Grenache blanc... (original post August 2011 with updates from 2007 to now).

Provence: Château des Launes

2011 Château des Launes white (85% Rolle, 15% Ugni blanc; 13.5% alc.) - aromatic floral and lees-edged, quite intense crisp and fresh with grapefruit vs oily honeyed flavours/texture, has a bit of weight too on its long stylish finish. Approx €11.50 cellar door/on-line (see website below for world distributors).

2011 Château des Launes rosé (75 Cinsault, 25 Grenache; 13%) - delicate and zesty with attractive citrus and rose petal aromas/flavours, crisp mouth-feel with lees-y bite and texture and a little roundness on the finish too. €9.50

2008 Cuvée Thomas red (70 Syrah, 30 Cabernet Sauvignon; 13%) - smoky edges with meaty and dark fruit, firm grip vs ripe and rounded on the palate, structured 'serious' finish with concentrated solid mouth-feel vs smoky maturing fruit. €13

2008 Cuvée Spéciale red (70 Syrah, 30 Cabernet Sauvignon; 13.5%) - more pencil shaving/coconut oak on the nose, rich and solid though with grainy texture, extracted and concentrated layered with lush ripe fruit and firm tannins, then tasty savoury finish too. Again pretty serious wine although quite dear at €19.50 (that's trendy Provence for you, although it's on offer on their site for about €11.75 when I looked, as are some of the others reviewed here).

This pretty estate lies in the Côtes de Provence appellation in the spectacular Massif des Maures national park area, about 10 kilometres inland from Saint Tropez heading towards Le Luc. It was renovated and replanted by the Dielesen family in 2005, who've obviously invested heavily here with a new winery, on-site holiday accommodation and a riding school too: check out www.chateaudeslaunes.com for more on that (I pinched the photo off there by the way). I tasted their wines in London last year.

Languedoc: Sainte Cécile du Parc update

"Stéphane Mouton and Christine Mouton Bertoli created this 'new' estate in 2005, which is found between Pézenas and the little village of Caux..."
With the 2009 vintage of two of their Coteaux du Languedoc reds tasting-noted: Notes d'Orphée and Sonatina both made from Syrah and old Cinsault vines... CLICK HERE to read my updated profile (originally scribbled in 2010).

Southern Rhône: +50% Grenache half-dozen

Here's another gratuitous Grenache mini-feature, this time focusing on six or seven Grenache-laden reds (re)discovered at a tasting last year, although these vintages (2010 and 2009, both very good) are probably still on sale. I've picked out a few I thought were pretty typical of the kind of lush spicy sunshine red you'd expect and want from the southern Rhone valley, from widely available to 'specialist merchant' and costing £7 to £15 in the UK.

Les Dauphins Réserve 2010 Côtes du Rhône, Celliers des Dauphins (60% Grenache, 40% Syrah; 13.5% alc.) - nice juicy ripe sweet Grenache fruit with spicy cherry undertones, quite soft and easy-going, attractive style. £6.99 Dedicated Wines (widely available).
Belleruche 2010 Côtes du Rhône, M. Chapoutier (50 Grenache, 50 Syrah; 13.5% alc.) - well-known name and label, this is similar to the above wine although more extracted and firmer, yet layered with nice sweet fruit. £9.50 Mentzendorff.
Les Coteaux 2009 Côtes du Rhône Villages, Boutinot (85 Grenache, 15 Syrah; 14% alc.) - quite rich and spicy with lush liquorice and blackberry fruit, punchy and grippy palate vs plenty of lovely soft dark fruit. £8.90 Boutinot.
Réserve du Crouzau 2010 Côtes du Rhône Villages Saint Gervais, Vignobles Foncalieu (80 Grenache, 20 Syrah; 14.5% alc.) - attractive Grenache nose and palate, rich and ripe vs powerful and peppery, tasty sweet fruit vs grip on its weighty finish. £7.99 The City Beverage Company, Hennings Wine Merchants.
Vacqueyras 2010, Domaine de la Soleiade (55 Grenache, 45 Syrah) - more perfumed and minty even, black cherry and liquorice with smoky edges too, concentrated powerful and firm with delicious ripe fruit. £13.10 Charles Taylor.
Les Pierres du Vallat 2010 Gigondas, Vignerons de Caractère (60 Grenache, 30 Syrah, 10 Mourvèdre; 14.5% alc.) - showing similar wild herb/minty edges, gripping chunky and concentrated vs dark fruit and peppery tones, fair weight with attractive dry tannins vs sweet fruit finish. £14.50 Charles Taylor, €17.60 cellar door. Bottle shot copied from vigneronsdecaractere.com.
Les Plans 2010 Vin de Pays du Vaucluse, Domaine Santa Duc (50 Grenache, 25 Syrah, 15 Merlot, 10 Cabernet; 13.5% alc.) - meaty savoury notes, pretty solid chunky mouth-feel yet has nice 'sweet/savoury' fruit on the finish. £8.75 Bancroft Wines.

Cahors: Malbec roadtrip part 3 - Châteaux Haute-Serre, La Caminade, Armandière...

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 roadtrip trilogy posted on French Mediterranean Wine earlier this year, plus bonus winery profiles from this exciting region of southwest France (and any of my other recent in-depth features produced in this format). Yours condensed into a neat 17 page mini-mag PDF delivered by email, either when you subscribe to both my blogs for just £10 (about $16 or €12) a year, or buy it for £2.50 on its own - these specials are not free2view. Click on the title link above to find the PayPal buttons!

Also starring a few choice wine picks and comments on 'the Perrin project' (not as mysterious as it might sound), La Bérangeraie, VinoValie/Les Bouysses, Clos Troteligotte and an update on previously 'profiled' organic estate LaCapelle Cabanac (click there)... Which all come together neatly to form the third and final part of my Cahors discovery tour from last autumn (alternative title perhaps: "Malbec III, the return home..."). To recap then, the story so far on FMW.com...

Cahors: Malbec roadtrip part1 Château Les Croisille - Château Combel La Serre - Château Tour de Miraval.
Cahors: Malbec roadtrip part 2 Châteaux du Cayrou, Famaey, Métairie Grande du Théron, Latuc.

1000 year-old olive tree (really!)
at Domaine de Landiech

Our first stop the following day was a picturesque (I took a few) wavy vineyard centred on a couple of spectacularly old olive trees and so-far not so pretty building site at Domaine de Landiech, where future plans for a landscaped winery and tourism operation are being put into place by Alain Dominique Perrin, owner of well-known Cahors estate Château Lagrézette. They planted 20 ha/50 acres of Malbec back in 2009 in one spot here along with cypress and olive trees (not the one above obviously), and are considering doing up the disused collection of old farm buildings on site to posh bed & breakfast accommodation. But the priority is to finish the new winery here, not much more than concrete platforms and pillars when I was there in October 2012, which is being constructed into the hill at the top end of the vineyard. Thus they will be making the wine here in two to three years time, although the vineyard will already be producing by then which "may or may not become part of the Lagrezette range." There'll also be a tasting room and shop with a viewing gallery on top, looking down over neat rows of vines running down and up and down and up again over hypnotically rolling hillocks. The vineyard is divided up into what they call "12 mini terroirs based on soil types, and we planted adapted rootstocks and clones (slightly different 'versions' of Malbec actually but still all Malbec DNA) in each plot... and we're already happy with the results..."
Get the full report to read on!

The Cahors Wine Producers' Association had the bright (bordering on radical) idea of relocating from a rather bleak old place opposite the station to the swinging heart of down-town Cahors, and must have spent a tidy sum refitting a lovely old building into the 'Cahors Malbec Lounge'. This groovy wine bar cum office space is obviously well stocked with local wines; and they run a variety of tastings to suit, from just turn up and taste (€5 for three wines in 20 minutes, three languages spoken) to a bookable one-hour mini-course (€15 six wines) or tailor-made evening events seating up to 44 people. This is a great idea and shopfront for their wines: more @ vindecahors.fr and travel tips at www.tourisme-cahors.fr. We met and tasted with a few more winemakers 'at the bar' here, these were my favourites (all Cahors)...
Subscribe or buy it to find out more!

Cahors: Malbec roadtrip part 2: Châteaux du Cayrou, Famaey, Métairie Grande du Théron, Latuc

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 roadtrip trilogy posted on French Mediterranean Wine earlier this year, plus bonus winery profiles from this exciting region of southwest France (and any of my other recent in-depth features produced in this format). Yours condensed into a neat 17 page mini-mag PDF delivered by email, either when you subscribe to both my blogs for just £10 (about $16 or €12) a year, or buy it for £2.50 on its own - these specials are not free2view. Click on the title link above to find the PayPal buttons!

You'll find a snippet of "the first tantalizing installment 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)..." featuring these wine estates here: Cahors: Malbec roadtrip part 1, Château Les Croisille - Château Combel La Serre - Château Tour de Miraval. My further adventures of 'desperately seeking Malbec' in Cahors continue, rather belatedly, with a wine touring report of Château du Cayrou, Château Famaey, La Métairie Grande du Théron and Château Latuc. Plus another restaurant tip in the middle of lovely nowhere...

Château du Cayrou (meaning gravel or stone) is a handsome yet understated affair (pic.  above, I wouldn't want to guess how much his roof maintenance costs though) in that typically 17th Century French country estate style; not as grand and show-off-y as Bordeaux, more workmanlike than a regal old town mansion, but plenty of it all in big stone nevertheless. The backdrop to my Facebook page did also feature a (not bad) shot of a beautiful old chunky "150 to 200 year-old" cedar tree in front of a curious round-tower outbuilding, lying off this photo rotating right of the chateau. Anyway, you'll come across Cayrou near Puy-L'Evêque and the estate has been owned by Georges Douin for four years now. Incidentally, Georges has been converting over to organics since he took over, so 'official certification' will be appearing on their labels soon. He farms 22 out of 30 ha (55 acres) of vines, split about 90/10 Malbec/Merlot with a little Tannat in "some of the other parcels... on the flat land leading into the winery." Georges chose not to cultivate these and preferred to rent out another seven hectares "on gravel and clay terraces" instead, to have consistent terrain across his vineyards. "The amount of stones is important," he explained, "the more the better to limit vine and grass growth," although he likes to "leave the natural grass cover all year around..."

Get the full report to read on!

A taster of the final part of my Malbec-tastic Cahors trilogy is HERE featuring Haute-Serre, La Caminade, Armandière, La Capelle Cabanac, La Bérangeraie, Vino Valie, Clos Troteligotte and Les Bouysses, peppered with more wine travel tips including the 'Malbec Lounge' in pretty Cahors town itself...

World Grenache Competition part 2: Roussillon and Châteauneuf-du-Pape

"Part one" posted on WineWriting.com ran a bit like this, just to regurgitate a bit of background and my thoughts: The first of its kind, I/they believe (? and set to become a regular event I hope), an international wine competition in celebration of one of my fav varieties, Grenache / Garnacha / Garnatxa / Cannonau: red, white, rosé and fortified wines. And absolutely why not, I hear you say. Ah, yes, Cannonau: it took me a while too to remember that Sardinia's Cannonau di Sardegna (click for Part 3...) red is made from what they call Grenache!

Old terraced Grenache, Banyuls-sur-mer

By Vi Erickson

I was on one of the tasting panels in Perpignan on 24th January; my table of tasters (two Spanish - erm, one Valencian, one Catalan - three French and yours truly) sampled and marked about 30 wines: one flight of Spanish rosés, one of Cannonau (my pick of those appear on my other blog - click on the link at top of page) and one of Roussillon 'table' reds. Being held in Perpignan, there were naturally a lot of local entries, which is probably reflected in the amount of medal winners from this region (and some good wines of course). Then again, most of the world's Grenache is planted in France - split between the Rhone valley, Roussillon and Languedoc - and Spain, Garnacha's spiritual home (I have/found contradictory info disagreeing over whether Spain or France has the most!). There were also some entries from Australia (probably not as many as there could/should have been?) and South Africa (again, medal winners and my favs will appear on WW.com), accompanied by surprise samples from Brasil and Republic of Macedonia! But what about California? I believe the main criterion applied for the contest was for large-majority Grenache (red, white, grey or 'furry'...) wines, which perhaps also explains the dominance of the Roussillon and lack of Chateauneuf-du-Pape or Languedoc in the 'French category', although you'd still have expected more Rhone wines in the medal line-up.

Talking of which, this is where I might make myself unpopular. I counted 163 Gold and Silver medals including nine Trophy winners: out of only 364 wines tasted, that's nearly 45% of them, which is too high a proportion compared to other international competitions; and in fact OIV regulations, the organisation that dreamed up the frankly stupid 'official' system used, apparently state that "awards are limited to 30% of samples entered..." I've come across this system before, where you have to allocate a set amount of marks to all aspects of each wine, including e.g. colour and clarity as if that really matters when making a quality judgement. Especially since Grenache isn't naturally known as a variety with lots of rich colour (you can if you really extract it), compared to say Syrah or Cabernet. Anyway, this very long-winded methodology does at least add up to 100, but it's more generous - or the opposite - than the 100 point system used by some wine critics. Scoring works as follows: 84 to 87 Silver medal, Gold 87 to 92 and Trophy 92 to 100 (see what I mean). It's too easy to award too many or too few marks to a wine by adding them all up for each 'category' (visual, olfactory, mouth-feel, overall impression and totally subjective 'typicity'), as you're supposed to. So I judged them applying the 'traditional' 100-pointer in my mind while asking myself: "is this really a silver or gold wine?" Then did the silly math afterwards.
Rant over: you have to use some scoring system or other obviously. And I'm certainly not knocking any attempt to promote great wines made from Grenache from around the world. The nine 'trophy' winners were as follows, which include a fair few Vins Doux Naturels fortified reds and 'whites' (red highlight = link to profile on this blog):

Château de Péna Hors d'âge AOP Rivesaltes Tuilé, Roussillon.

Dom Brial 2010 AOP Rivesaltes Grenat, Roussillon.
Domaine Rossignol 2008 AOP Rivesaltes Ambré, Roussillon.

Albera En croisade Hors d'âge AOP Rivesaltes Ambré, Roussillon.

GT-G 2010 LePlan-Vermeersch AOP Côtes du Rhône Villages.

Lafou Els Amelers 2011 Roqueta DO Terra Alta white, Catalonia.

Saint Roch Kerbuccio 2011 Maison Lafage AOP Maury Sec, Roussillon.

Sartiglia 2011 Azienda Vinicola Attilio Contini DOC Cannonau di Sardegna (actually my top wine in our flight from Sardinia: see WW.com link at top).

Sur Grains 2011 Domaine Boudau AOP Rivesaltes Grenat, Roussillon (my note below).

The full results are viewable here: www.grenachesdumonde.com.

My favourites from the Roussillon and Rhone Valley (tasted in the competition blind, that evening at a food & wine tasting bash or the previous night over dinner) were as follows, including the first outing, for me at least, of some exciting Maury Sec dry red wines (the appellation rules were amended from vintage 2011 to embrace 'dry' and fortified sweet reds from the same area based on Grenache). Medals awarded are in brackets and/or my 100-point style score afterwards:

Sans plus attendre 2010, Domaine Modat Côtes du Roussillon Villages Caramany (Gold medal) - attractive white pepper, sweet cherry and liquorice; firm vs rounded with powerful yet balanced finished. 90
Domaine de Bila-Haut 2010 M. Chapoutier, Côtes du Roussillon Villages Latour de France (Gold) - young lively fruit, rich black cherry with minty spicy edges, tight fresh finish showing a bit of class too. 87+
Le Clos du Fourat 2011 L'Etoile AOP Collioure Rouge (Gold) - nice peppery style with quite rich dark fruit, rounded oak-tinged palate but has attractive tannins and ripe fruit too. 86

Cuvée Centenaire white 2010 Domaine Lafage (large proportion of Grenache blanc I believe) - shows a touch of wood layered with attractive yeast-lees notes and buttery hazelnut aromas/flavours and floral 'mineral' edges, rounded and quite soft with fair weight and rich exotic fruit vs hint of fresh acidity still; good with creamy porcini soup appetizer.

Nicolas vieilles vignes 2011 Maison Lafage, Côtes Catalanes (15% alc.) - attractive Grenache nose, sweet fruit with peppery edges and punchy mouth-feel, firm and structured with tasty ripe fruit; good (Silver).

Cuvée Léa 2011 Maison Lafage, Côtes du Roussillon Les Aspres (14%) - ripe resin-y and rich vs solid framework, closes up on its long finish; needs a little time to open up (Silver).

Montpin 2011 Domaine Pouderoux, Maury Sec - lovely Grenache fruit with peppery intensity, again tasting a bit austere on the palate at the moment (like many 2011s) but it's promising (Silver).

Légende 2011 Mas Amiel, Maury Sec - delicious juicy ripe Grenache fruit, powerful and peppery palate with tight firm long finish; very nice wine.

Grenache blanc vieilles vignes 2011 Clos des Fées (14.5%) - rich rounded and powerful, concentrated with honeyed vs aniseed flavours, rounded finish vs a touch 'mineral' too. Lovely white wine served by the owner/winemaker, the ironically philosophical and down-to-earth Henri Bizeul himself.

Vins Doux Naturels

As a 'by the way', we discovered from Eric Aracil, the Roussillon Wines' export guy who offered the first two below for tasting, that in terms of labelling "Vintage" style red VDNs, winemakers are moving to a uniform use of 'Grenat' in Rivesaltes and Maury and 'Rimage' for Banyuls.

2011 Rivesaltes Grenat 'sur grains' Domaine Boudau (fortified 'on skins', aged in inert concrete vats) - lovely lively black cherry and liquorice fruit with spicy pepper and violet notes, tasty black fruit palate vs firm tannins and nice cut, delicious style drinking well already although will improve in bottle no doubt (Trophy).

2011 Maury Mas Karolina (similar winemaking although part-aged in demi muids size casks = usually about 450 to 600 litre capacity) - more closed up to start, hints of lush dark blackberry fruit, powerful ripe and sweet with peppery tones, bigger more structured wine than above, less 'fruity' even and beginning to show more savoury characters; good stuff, for keeping.

2008 Maury Domaine Thunevin Calvet - enticing mix of dark fruity and peppery vs savoury meaty development, still has a bit of 'kick' yet is also becoming quite soft on the finish.

2010 Maury Serre Romani (15.5%) - attractive aromatic violet notes, sweet vs grippy palate, nice fresher 'lighter' style. Their 2011 won a Gold by the way.

2003 Rivesaltes ambré 2003 Vignoble de Constance et Terrassous (merger of the Thuir and Terrats co-op wineries) - delicious pecan/walnut aromas with toasted hazelnut and Amontillado-style oxidising maturing notes, well balanced and complex finish; still very much alive actually.

The day after the competition, a group of us visited Coume del Mas and Cave Abbé Rous in Banyuls-sur-mer and Domaine Sarda-Mallet on the outskirts of Perpignan: updates on these estates/wineries to follow.

Châteauneuf-du-Pape including some tit-bits of background presented by Michel Blanc, director of the producers' federation:

The Châteauneuf appellation area comes to about 75% Grenache overall, pruned to old bush vines which are handpicked "forcing them to sort the grapes in the vineyard or cellar." Grenache is planted up to about 150 metres altitude with less of the region's characteristic big pebbles as you go up the slopes. The vineyards are often swept by the powerful Mistral wind and see little but heavy rain when they get it. Lots of Grenache was planted here for the first time in the early 20th Century - only 30% was allowed until the end of the previous century - although "we're now looking again at our other varieties, such as Counoise, in the face of hotter summers to get better balance in the wines."

2010 Cornelia Constanza Domaine de la Solitude (100% Grenache, 10% of it aged in new oak) - aromatic floral dark cherry and liquorice nose with volatile fiery notes, punchy vs soft palate with sweet peppery fruit; attractive style even if a little 'hot'.

2010 Domaine Pierre Usseglio - lovely ripe Grenache style with liquorice and pepper, punchy vs soft and fruity palate, nice dry vs rounded tannins, quite fiery yet concentrated and complex; not over the top in the end.

2010 Grenaches de Pierre Domaine Giraud (15% alc.) - wow, quite 'hot' vs lush and spicy warm Grenache fruit; too powerful and unbalanced though: goes to show that 100% isn't necessarily best.

My pick of the Spanish rosados and Cannonau di Sardegna reds we tasted (will) feature on WW.com (click on highlighted links), along with a few choice cuts from the succinct presentations given in the afternoon on Grenache and pen names in Sardinia, Aragon, Catalonia and Australia.

Film: 'Les Terroiristes du Languedoc'

I was slouched in the off-red velvet front row (stiff neck anyone) at the packed out Diagonal cinema in Montpellier old town recently for the premiere of American wine filmmaker (or film winemaker perhaps?!) Ken Payton's new documentary, Les Terroiristes du Languedoc. This enjoyable (although arguably half-hour too long, a little more editing needed me thinks...) piece of wine storytelling follows the trials and tribulations of a dozen Languedoc wine estate owners from worries about the weather and bank manager in late spring 2012 to slight relief of vintage time of that same and somewhat unpredictable and challenging year.

Ken Payton

The stars of the film are (red highlight = link to post, updates to follow on some of these): John & Nicole Bojanowski from Le Clos du Gravillas in stunningly set St. Jean de Minervois; John & Liz Bowen from Domaine Sainte-Croix in not exactly ugly either Fraïssé-Corbières; Emmanuel Pageot & Karen Turner from Domaine Turner Pageot in Gabian; Virgile Joly, wife and kids in Saint Saturnin; Cyril Bourgne from Domaine La Madura, Saint Chinian; bubbly Brigitte Chevalier from Domaine de Cébène in difficult to pronounce Caussiniojouls, Faugeres country; André Leenhardt at Château de Cazeneuve in Pic St-Loup; François Delhon from Domaine Bassac in Puissalicon north of Béziers; Eric & Vianney Fabre from Château d'Anglès in St Pierre la Mer on beautiful La Clape 'almost-island' near Narbonne; Frédéric & Marie Chauffray, La Réserve d'O up in the Terrasses du Larzac; Jean-Pierre Vanel from Lacroix-Vanel in Caux near Pézenas; and last but not least Thierry Rodriquez from Prieuré de St Sever/Mas Gabinèle, in Causse et Veyran on the far-eastern St-Chinian high ground.
I particularly liked the way you get an insight into the problems, setbacks and difficulties (keeping a sense of humour though) that face guys like this running a vineyard and selling the wine they produce, as a business trying to make a living as much as any lifestyle choice or whatever. You also get a feel for these likeable personalities behind the labels including e.g. those little disagreements between the partners involved (business, husband and wife, sons and daughters etc.), which is certainly more interesting than 12 people would be all going on about nothing but their special terroir. There are some pretty vine-scape shots for sure (not too difficult in the Languedoc wild-lands), but not too much - menacing cloud and big wind are as much a feature here as what could easily become over-idealized dream-scapes.

Anyway, nice one Ken. Apparently, Les Terroiristes du Languedoc will be available on DVD and online sometime soon-ish. Check out their Facebook page for more info: facebook.com/LesTerroiristesDuLanguedoc

Rhône: Cave de Tain: big co-ops part 1

The sizeable Cave de Tain l'Hermitage co-operative winery dominates the 'big-boy' field in the northern Rhône Valley, although that's not necessarily a bad thing at all when you taste right across their varied range (or even just drink a glass or two of one of them, of course); including a rare back-cellar of some excellent older vintages too (e.g. 1990 red noted at bottom of page), if you're lucky enough to get the chance. I wouldn't be the first or last one to say that they almost always make very reliable Crozes-Hermitage red, which is nicely representative of pure tasty fruity spicy Syrah (all their reds are 100% sexy Syrah) and widely imported under many own-labels into many countries (see web link below photo for more info). Or white Crozes for that matter: as you'll see here, Cave de Tain's white wines, and northern Rhône whites in general other than that trophy-hunter wine Condrieu perhaps (and I can see why), are sometimes overlooked but definitely worth a look (although not always all of them...)

Steep Syrah steps from www.cavedetain.com

A few quick facts & figures might help set the scene here, although I'm not going to rehash everything on their site. The co-op growers' total wine-lands come to over 1000 ha (about 2500 acres; told you they were 'big'), and they do own vineyards in certain top sites especially the Hermitage, Cornas and Saint Joseph cru appellations. These growers are backed up by the usual, and essential, modern winery operation with a solid team of winemakers, marketeers, sales people etc. Something worth pointing out in particular is Cave de Tain's recently restored estate and property, Le Fief de Gambert de Loche, found among precious Hermitage hillside vine-land. This has become a kind of wine tourism centre focusing on the area's history and the Syrah variety, and regular tutored tasting events can be booked and are held in situ. If you're planning on staying around here, two co-op grower families have holiday accommodation available: again check out the CdT site.

I sampled these wines with the export manager on their UK importer's stand, Boutinot Wines, at the London International Wine Fair last year (yet more forgotten-about notes, still worth resurrecting though). Prices are in euros per bottle for cases of six bought on-line, to give you an idea.

White - all 100% Marsanne

2011 Marsanne - attractive yeast-lees notes with white peach fruit, honeyed and creamy too vs crisp mouth-feel with the odd aniseed flavour. Nice style and good value. €3.50

2010 Crozes-Hermitage - similar characters to above although quite closed up when I tried it, probably more intense yet seems to fall a little flat in the end? €7.90

2003 Hermitage - rich colour and oxidized nutty nose, toasted hazelnut notes, rounded and buttery vs mineral tones, surprisingly complex and alive still underneath all those lovely developed flavours (03 was a very hot vintage). About €25?

2008 Hermitage Au Coeur des Siecles (selected from two 100 year-old vineyards) - nutty maturing nose/palate vs fresh mouth-feel underneath, buttery and toasty vs crisp mineral and classy. Serious foodie. €30

Red

2010 Syrah - nice simple aromatic peppery style, light easy and tasty. €3.50

2009 St-Joseph - aromatic perfumed Syrah with spicy black cherry, firm vs ripe mouth-feel, nice balance and style with enticing lingering minty fruit. About €10.

2010 Crozes-Hermitage - floral spicy typical young Syrah nose, firm and tangy vs delicious simple fruit. €7.90

2009 Les Hauts de Fief Crozes-Hermitage (plot selection) - a bit heavy on the pencil-shaving / coconut oak, although has lively fruit too; solid vs maturing tones, concentrated but a touch samey on the winemaking front. €11.80

2007 Cornas Arenes Sauvages - smoky maturing meaty nose with peppery tones, still structured vs nicely maturing, has power weight and grip vs lovely fruit. Great stuff. €22

2009 Hermitage - touches of oak on the nose, quite closed up and firm still vs lots of ripe dark fruit lurking in there; punchy on its tight taut finish, not expressing itself so well at the moment but has great potential. About €25.

1990 Hermitage - a classic vintage in the Rhone, north and south from memory. Complex leather and tobacco notes, meaty vs dried dark 'sweet' fruit, still has plenty of substance vs developing savoury fruit; firm vs rounded mouth-feel on its long tasty classy finish. Wow. Yum.

More Crozes et al on this blog:

Wine touring feature here (2007 road-trip).

Southern French reds @ Marks & Spencer's (Nov 2011).

Big French co-ops part 2 to follow soon on www.winewriting.com:

Cave de Turckheim, Alsace.