My first encounter with this highly praised Southern French red wine from Aniane, a small village close to the city Montpellier.
Domaine de la Grange des Pères, founded by Laurent Vaillé doesn’t even have a website, but is considered by many as the Grand Cru of the Languedoc. Also, it is a rather young estate: its first vintage only came out in 1992. Read the rest of this entry »
First of all I have no clue why this wine is named Rozeta and why it contains a Z. But somehow it made me think of the movie title V for Vendetta, and why not have a blogpost title completely without sense !?
Well but back to some facts. Rozeta is made by the young winemaker Maxime Magnon in the AOC Corbières which is the biggest AOC within the Languedoc. This wine is mostly composed of old vine Carignan (80 years) plus some drops of Grenache, Cinsault and Syrah. Read the rest of this entry »
Even though I generally like the powerful and flavour-loaded white cuvées’ of Southern France, this one wasn’t really my cup of tea. The wine seemed a bit out of balance with 14% alcohol dominating too much for my taste. But I can read from this article (in German), that 2007 was a vintage full of difficulties for this young estate. So don’t take this very short note as a general judgment on the winery. I’m rather encouraged to give it another chance with the following vintages. Check their website here.
This bottle was in the cellar for a few years now, and admittedly it is an estate I had many bottles of (check here, here and here for notes) and got a bit tired of the last years. But tonight I felt it would be the right bottle to match an oven-roast chicken with lots of fresh herbs, and it did a great job. Read the rest of this entry »
Yannick Pelletier ist spät Winzer geworden. Mit 34 Jahren erst beginnt er seine Lehrzeit und arbeitet dabei zuerst im renommierten südfranzösischen Betrieb Léon Barral und anschliessend beim Winzertrio Cuilleron-Villard-Gaillard (Rhône), um sich etwas später in St Nazaire de Ladarez im Saint-Chinian mit einem eigenen Gut niederzulassen.
This is a bottle I am already familiar with since I had it quite often when I used to live in Montpellier: It’s a true classic of that region and a safe value that I’m always happy to have in the glass (older vintage TN, see here). So I was quite thrilled when a friend brought me that bottle which stems from the specific Languedoc AOC Pic Saint-Loup which lies North of Montpellier. It is a reminder of good old times and brings the sun into our somewhat grey German summer at the moment. Read the rest of this entry »
