French red wine region

Since the start of COVID I haven’t been drinking any alcohol. The first time I drink again I want it to be very good red wine from France in France. So I am looking to rent a gîte when COVID allows it. Now I have read about different types of wine belonging to specific regions. But honestly I lack the knowledge of which wine I exactly want. I couldn’t name the type when I would taste wine. I only know if I like it when I drink it. I am aware of wine indexes. So I tried to base my decision on that. I heard Bordeaux wines from 2010 are great. So my thinking for now is. Search a gîte in Bordeaux and find a place that sells it. (Preferably a winery right?) But please, if you have a better suggestion. Enlighten me. Merci

Curious why the tee totaller abstinence for covid?

I would hesitate to recommend 10 BDX as it’s generally far too young. Maybe if you can describe wine that you have liked before, flavor, texture, etc, you can get some better recommendations.

The abstinence is for a combination of reasons. I wanted to test myself and see if I could do a dry year. Later I saw a neuro scientist show brain scans. He showed the health results after a year of alcohol abstinence. So from that point I decided I wanted to try it out. But it was hard to find a good moment to begin. I actually started a few months before COVID. But the pandemic definitely made it easier for me to press ahead. That is because of less social interactions.

It is hard for me to describe a wine that I liked. I honestly paid little attention to how wines distinguished themselves. I just knew that I enjoyed some wines better than others. I am aware it is almost wine blasphemy but it is the true. And now I want to learn and actually be conscious about which wines I like. I hope that is okay.

To give you an idea. I am going to try to give you a description anyway. I like a richness in flavor. With a lingering aftertaste. I think you call that bold in wine terms. I think I like fruitiness and I might like ‘leather’. I don’t like bitter, liquorish and tobacco flavors. Also I don’t particularly enjoy a strong alcohol taste. It can be sweet but not extremely sweet.

An update. Many people have adviced me to go to the Southern Rhône region by now. I think I will do that.

Nobody?

There’s not a lot of activity in this forum. I imagine you would get better responses in the Wine Talk forum.

Based on your description, you have a New World palate. Southern Rhone is good advice to find riper French wines, but I seek out the opposite style, so I can’t really provide more help.

Any particular reason it has to be within France? If we’re strictly limiting to France, I agree with Andrew that Southern Rhone is your best bet but Spain makes a lot of bold & ripe wines and might be more up your alley.

Hi Jason
You could follow the old adage, of drinking the wines of the region, with the food of the region. It’s certainly not a bad rule of thumb, and on top of that, drinking local wines will
a) get you immediately in the good books of the local person serving the food and wine
b) they’ll know the wines well, and indeed the food, so they’ll be confident in suggesting wine/food matches

So my suggestion is to find the French region that appeals to you the most, be it Provence, Alsace, Loire, Rhone or somewhere else. The wine choices can follow that.