September News
As many of you know I have always had a soft spot for southern France, ever since I set Vin Neuf some 24 years ago now. Whether it’s the beauty, the expanse, the quiet, the harsh extremes that I love, or the laid back relaxation of the southern French. Perhaps the unmanicured vines, the true brutal and beautiful reality of nature on display: from 40 degree days to flash floods after thunderstorms to warm beautiful long lunches under a mulberry tree with a glass of rosé in hand and family around… what’s not to like!
Sadly the summer is now done and as we approach autumn and the start of winter we have a host of tastings and wines for Jonathan and I to sample to over the coming weeks to showcase in the remaining months as the year draws to a close.
Our visit at the end of August to Domaine des Caizergues in the Terraces de Larzac Appellation and Domaine de L’Hortus of Pic St. Loup and Chateau Lascaux of Pic St. Loup was amazing.
On an unusually damp and rainy day (we saw the forecast and realised it wouldn’t be a day spent by the pool reading my holiday book Jean of Arc… spoiler alert, it didn’t end well for her, and just for wearing trousers, well and a bit more)!
A bit of an overview of where we are, the Languedoc appellation, formerly known as Coteaux du Languedoc is the most northerly appellation of Sud de France regions set in the heart of the Cevennes mountains and the edge of the Grand Massif.
The Terraces de Larzac is about 45 minutes north east of our Picpoul producer Domaine des Lauriers and 45 minutes north west of Montpellier. It covers 700 hectares under vine of which 73% is farmed organically as is Domaine Caizergues, the region has 3 cave cooperatives and 90 small wineries.
At Domaine des Caizergues we were kindly shown around by the owners Bob and Pat the owners of this estate since 2017 and ably assisted by their head winemaker Matthew.
They have a great range of wines from your vin de pays ‘St Guilhem de Desert’ Bobin wine that is light crunchy and easy going unashamedly not necessarily typical of the region but great when customers are looking for lighter alcohol and possibly lighter tannins as only had 3 days maceration (contact with the skins). Their Languedoc appellation wines Les Magnarelles Red 2022 (£16.95), Carignan, Grenache & Syrah whilst sees no oak ageing has longer in contact with the skins so displays more colour and grip and spices as you would expect; the Terrace de Larzac L’Arbe d’Or 2018 (£18.95) similar cepage (blend) but here we have more Mourvedre, certainly in this vintage and has spent some time in used oak barrels. Rich dark fruits and notes of the mediterranean ‘garrigues’ – fennel, thyme, sage, lavender.
Some 30 minutes down the road and is the neighbouring and most northerly appellation of the Languedoc, Pic St. Loup, as mentioned earlier. The reason why this is so important is that it has cooler nights but still warm days and 600mm more rainfall than Montpellier that is only 35 minutes south, thanks to the Grand Massif. The Pic St. Loup and L’Hortus mountains both play their part.
Domaine de L’Hortus is in the valley dividing these two mountains and is the state of the art James Bondesq winery. They make just a few wines, so they are extremely focused, the key ones are their unoaked wines are Bergerie de L’Hortus red (£24.95) and white (£21.95) and their Domaine de L’Hortus Grand Cuvée red and white.
The Bergerie de L’Hortus white is a blend of 7 grape varieties grown on the valley floor, Roussanne, 30% Sauvignon 20% , Viognier 20%, Sauvignon Gris 10%, Chardonnay 10%. Muscat a Petit Grains5% and Petit Manseng 5%! So there’s a lot going on here but all purity of the fruit, lovely fresh aromatics of white peaches, floral notes. As someone said (and not lead by me in a recent tasting) they would rather drink this at this price than a Chablis! He certainly has a point!
A lovely family winery established in 1972 by Charles Orliac and then expanded over the years when his brother Jean Orliac bought another 8 hectares and released their first wine under their label in 1990. They now have 80 hectares. Having known the estate for over 20 years now and meant Yves & Martin at trade tastings over this time, I had never met Jean until this recent trip so it was a great privilege and honour to share some time with him and Maude their export manager, discussing the estate and grandchildren off to university!
A further 8 minutes down the road and a whirlwind away from the modern glass, wood and stainless steel architecture of L’Hortus estate is Chateau Lascaux. Whilst I knew a little about the estate and their wines, I didn’t realise how little it was. We were greeted by Mangoulene who is one of the two sisters now in charge of the estate which has been passed on by their father Jean-Benoit Cavalier. They are now the 15th generation to run Chataux Lascaux… some history!
Jean-Benoit is still heavily involved in the estate and kindly joined us on the tour of the winery. Explaining their organic and biodynamic practices and their move from their ancestors of arming sheep to vines. In Pic St. Loup, the Syrah grape is the dominant within the blend and has to be greater than 50%, which is different to the rest of Southern French/Southern Rhone reds where its Grenache that takes the lead. Hence they are more akin to wines of the Northern Rhone of St. Joseph and Crozes-Hermitage but without the price tag.
Jean-Benoit kindly passed us to Charlotte who thankfully spoke better English than I did my French and as we were now past 4pm, my brain was getting fried. We walked across the road to Jean-Benoit’s house which also just happens to be the tasting room and remains of a 12th century monastic home, so by this point our minds were really blown away. Even my 14 and 17 year old were very suitably impressed and no TikTok in sight!
The red wines offer wonderful heady perfumed notes of blackberry, black currant and Black olive. We have the Cavalier red and white, which again is labelled as the vin de pays St Guilhem Les Desert as they have non-local grape varieties. Cavalier white is Viognier-Sauvignon and the red a Cabernet-Syrah both £17.95 each, the Carra red Pic. St Loup is £24.95 and has lovely layers of soft red fruits and interwoven spices, that will be just perfect this autumn by the fire.
If you are ever in this region (45 minutes north of Montpellier) please do go and visit one or even all of these producers as they are making some fabulous wines in some spectacular scenery and they just happen to also be great people.
Santé!
