Languedoc

Any favorite producers from the Languedoc? I buy a little Mas de Daumas Gassac here and there, and I’ve enjoyed Rene Rostaing’s Languedoc wine, Domaine du Puech Chaud. Other than those and the occasional rosé, it’s a vast, unexplored region to me.

So what should I be drinking from the Languedoc?

I enjoyed a 2006 Domaine Puydeval Vin de Pays d’Oc Rouge the other night - all of $11 from Garagiste (will this thread get deleted now??), and tremendously enjoyable, even if it was twice the price.

Love this area.
Fav is probably Jean-Louis Tribouley. The ‘Orchis’ bottle is a phenomenal bargain at $20. Their other bottlings are quite good also.
L’Oustal Blanc - terrific at several price points.
Mas de la Deveze

And others. Garagiste has been very good at finding good stuff at good prices from here. WineX has done pretty well also.

Melissa,

I like Chateau La Roque from the Pic St. Loup region. The Cupa Numismae bottling is ageworthy and quite good. The Mourvedre cuvee is nice as well. The white used to be super cheap and good. It’s now not so cheap but still good. These are Kermit Lynch imports.

I like Ch. d’Oupia from Minervois, a Louis/Dressner import. Great “basic” wine and the Cuvee Barons is worth cellar time. For everyday drinking, it’s hard to beat the Les Heritiques bottling for around $8.

Prieure de St. Jean de Bebian is well known and good stuff too, though I haven’t had recent vintages. This is “Coteaux du Languedoc” appellation. Not sure who brings them in these days.

I hadn’t tried anything from Chabanon before M. Alberty had some at the shop last year, but those are nice reds. I think Triage brings them in.

Then there’s the Grange des Pere red and white, from Kermit Lynch. The 2005 white is one of the best wines I’ve tried in the past year. Price is dear, but compared to Hermitage blanc, it’s worth it. The red I have not had.

If you don’t mind including Roussillon into your Lanquedoc category, some of my all time faves are the dry reds of Collioure from Domaine du Mas Blanc. I love the Banyuls from this producer, sweet fortified wines from the same area. But the dry reds are overlooked and sometimes super cheap around our city. The Cosprons Levants bottling is excellent, and again they are ageworthy.

Enjoy.

I find the Languedoc to be something of a minefield. Producers do not necessarily make wines of similar quality from year to year. In some cases the wine’s style can vary widely from vintage to vintage. That being said, there are an awful lot of excellent values to be had here but stick to spectacular vintages like 98, 01 and perhaps 07.

For me, the Lanquedoc means nice dry crisp roses to enjoy(chilled down) on a summer’s day. Nothing fancy, but very enjoyable wines a reasonable prices. They’re great with salads, cheese, fish, and jsut by themselves.

The area has some serious wines, but the battle to find them may not be worth the effort. Enjoy at what,imo, they’re best at doing!

Cris, I think you mentioned “Orchis” to me once before. This time, I’ll have to actually try it.

Some familiar names there, Vincent. I think maybe we had something from Chabanon too.Is Les Heretiques the blue label with the constellations? If so, I’ve had it and enjoyed it many times, although not in the past couple of years.

Definitely. Had the 1979 Domaine du Mas Blanc Banyuls Cuvée St-Martin with a dark chocolate marquis with Port macerated cherries (23 February 2007) and it was excellent.

Feel free to accuse me of being a “homer” (the distributor I work for carries Kermit Lynch wines), but Kermit truly does bring in some of the best wines from the Languedoc, from the expensive (the previously mentioned Grange des Peres), to the low end (Fontsainte, Lascaux, and St. Martin de la Garrigue), and in-between (Barral, Magnon, and d’Aupilhac). While there are a few Kermit producers I’m not as fond of (Poujol has rarely done much for me, and La Roque seems to have gone a little modern for my tastes), if it’s from the Languedoc and says “Kermit Lynch” on the back label, the odds are that the wine is pretty good at least.

Marshall

Marshall’s in the house!

We now have a resident French EXPERT on hand!

[gheyfight.gif]

Thanks Marshall. When in doubt, I do indeed look for the Kermit Lynch sticker on the back of a wine bottle, so I’m dismayed to hear that a Lynch wine has gone modern.

I don’t expect you to write a book here, but can you give me a primer on the grapes that dominate in different parts of the Langudeoc? Or… does it even work that way? Is there a dominant grape, like Syrah in the Northern Rhone or Mourvedre in Bandol?

Disclaimer: I represent a few Languedoc wineries, so take my comments for what they’re worth.

Melissa, there’s no one dominant grape, it’s a real mish-mash of the traditional (Picpoul, Mauzac, and Rhone varieties) and the modern (Cab, Merlot, other international grapes). The area is still somewhat of a free-for-all, which is both good and bad. Lots and lots of bad wines, but some good wines are cropping up more and more, especially as the area’s price points are lower than the Rhone’s. People can be much more experimental (I met a winemaker that harvests his Chardonnay in late July to maintain the freshness and avoid the uber-ripening that occurs in the Languedoc). That said, it can still be a minefield.

I’d agree with Marshall, I like many of Kermit’s offerings from the region. And La Roque has gone somewhat modern, with more oak and (to my palate) more extraction.

Look either for importers you trust or names of producers you know do a good job. Sounds like Burgundy, eh? Only much cheaper, of course… [blackeye.gif]
Cheers!

As Michel said, you’ll find all kinds of things in the Languedoc. Grenache is probably the most popular grape for reds, although there is Syrah, Carignane, Cinsault, Mourvedre, Cabernet, Merlot, and probably just about any grape you can imagine (Mas Daumas Gassac uses small amounts of Portuguese grapes like Tinta Cao and Tinta Roriz, for example). Whites are all over the board, with Picpoul and Rolle (Vermentino) probably dominating (just based on the producers I know…I don’t have vineyard stats), and some Viognier, Marsanne, Roussanne, etc.

One of the things that you should find in most Languedoc wines is the smell (and sometimes flavor) of the garrigue, which is the wild, scrub-brush blend of rosemary, thyme, and other herbs that seem to coat the landscape in the area. There’s also a certain wildness to some of the wines that I adore but that some who prefer more processed, international, generic wines (did they all stay on the Parker board?) may despise.

I think you’d be a big fan of Barral’s Faugeres, for example, which around $22 or so is a seriously good wine. He also makes a couple of upper-end bottlings (Jadis and Valiniere) where the blend varies, but they all taste like Barral Faugeres. One of the things that bugs me about American taste is that people seem more concerned with varieties (note proper usage here…grapes are varieties, wines labeled with the name of the grape are varietals) than with the overall wine itself. The region and producer is key in the Languedoc, the composition less so.

Marshall

Leon Barral Faugeres is the first thing that came to my mind - it is a traditional, well made, complex, medium bodied, low/no oak, lots of garrigue, ageworthy and best of all far from overripe bottle of Grenache for ~$20. Amazing stuff for the price to be honest. That is my strong recommendation.

A recent bottle that we quite enjoyed was the Mas de Dames that Garagiste offered a while back. $15 or so and excellent.

Regarding some other wines mentioned:

• I find the Mas de la Deveze (based on two samples) to be fairly modern and in my opinion overextracted. Of course opinions of this will differ with taste.
• I find Mas de Daumas Gassac to be quite bretty, just as a minor warning.

Good luck exploring, have fun. The good news is there is a lot of good wine and it’s generally very affordable. I’d recommend avoiding oak, high prices, and modern blends that incorporate cabernet or much syrah.

Who let Marshall in here?

Melissa, yes, the Heretiques is the blue label with the constellations.

Must as it pains me to admit, Marshall makes several good points. There are worthwhile producers in many price ranges. Kermit Lynch indeed brings in probably the broadest selection of good producers. And it’s not so much about the grapes but the producers. There’s a lot of junk from this area, but there are many, many good producers making wines from so many different grapes. I forget about things like the muscadet of the Languedoc, Picpoul de Pinet, the muscats of Frontignane and Rivesaltes (that in Roussillon), the sparkling wine of Blanquette di Limoux, the sweet reds of Maury (Roussillon again), etc. There are so many interesting things from this vast area. Dismissing it as only fit for cheap stuff I think reflects thinking based in occasional magazine articles based in easy stereotypes, rather than understanding the history of many regions and the obvious explosion in domaine bottlings from quality producers. Sure, I’m not giving up the Rhone or any other region, but there’s definitely a place in my cellar for Languedoc/Roussillon.

To this point it should be noted that there are a lot of new plantings and labels in the Languedoc that are labeled as such and say ‘vin de pays’ that are made from more internationally profitable varieties and blends there of. Stick to the more traditional bottlings and those labeled from sub regions.
Roussillon
Fitou
Minervois
Corbieres
Collioure
etc.

There was a thread on here yesterday about that-- someone asked whether people care about the percentages of different grape varieties (gotcha on the distinction there) in their wines. I know what you mean about the preoccupation with variety, but the world is a big place. Knowing a wine’s composition helps someone who’s new to a given region’s wines begin to get a sense for what the wines might be like. I know that’s not universally true-- drinking Bourgueil isn’t a great frame of reference for Cheval Blanc-- but it’s a data point.

Is Barral Faugeres at L&E?

And wait-- that bouquet you described-- it sounds very Bandolesque, no? And by that I mean the region, and not your feline companion.

Isn’t it wonderful? [d_sunny.gif]

Love the Languedoc myself, though it can be dicey. The upside is that the price usually mitigates the risk level. As some have mentioned there is a wild funky burly quality to some of these wines that can be a lot fun.

Some of the producers I have enjoyed:

Château De Paraza : a nice Minervois for $10

Château Saint Martin de la Garrigue: love the Cuvee Gres de Montpellier bottling

Château La Roque

Château Mansenoble

Château de Lancyre

Domaine d’Aupilhac

Ermitage du Pic St. Loup : Cuvee St. Agnes is a nice bottling.

Many of these are KL selections.

Thanks for starting a thread on the 'doc.