New wine tasting - Cuvee Florence

So as you know my recent trip to France has made me rethink French wine, so I hot footed it to the Wanstead Majestic and got a couple of whites and four reds from the region we visited (and a bit further afield).

The Symbiose Piquepol Sauvignon Blanc 'Cuvee Florence' 2014 is from the Cotes de Thau area (East of Beziers). Being a fan of both grapes I was really interested to try this. For the price £6.74 (on offer) I thought it was a really nice drop.

Crisp, flinty, minerally and refreshing the tropical nature of the Sauvignon did slightly overpower the Piquepol, but I thought it was very pleasant. I drank it with a fish dish, but it would be equally nice to drink by itself and try and reminisce about lazy summer days, or in our case, the wettest August on record!

For more details go to the Majestic website:
 https://www.majestic.co.uk/Symbiose-Piquepoul-Sauvignon-Blanc-Cuvee-Florence--zid10065

Wine tasting in the South of France - a final word

So we went off to the Mountains right near Mont Luis, approx 45 mins drive from Perpignan to drink all of our fabulous wines we had been buying all week.

The skiing area where we stayed, whilst void of grapes (sniff) was a beautiful area and the perfect end to a real eye opening week for me in terms of wine.

We drank 10 bottles over the 2 days out here (there was literally nothing to do of an evening but drink wine and solve the world's problems/argue about the world's best national anthem!)

It was great to have larger glasses of some of the delicious wine we had tasted earlier on in the week.

I have never really been a fan of French wine before this holiday, with the exception of areas I know such as Chablis and Sancerre.

I had always stuck with New World - largely NZ for white and Argentina/Chile and Oz for my reds. When I have been willing to pay more, then I have looked towards California and France.

We tried so many reasonably priced, very nice French wines that I am a complete convert and intend on trying wines from all over France from now on...

I went to Majestic the week I got back and picked up a case of 6, including some reds from Roquebrun. We didn't try any of the wines from there whilst we were on holiday, but we did get stuck in a tractor/grape traffic jam, so I felt like I should give them a go.
I'll let you know how I get on.

But for now - Vive la France!

a pretty darn good view to drink wine to...

Wine Tasting in the South of France - Cellar Dominicain - Collioure

So onto Collioure, a lovely little seaside town right near the border of Spain. It was very quaint, with cobbled lanes, a church, a fort, a palace and the inspiration for many impressionist and abstract painters, along with world famous anchovies!

The town was delightful and reminded me of Sitges (just south of Barcelona).

There was a fab little wine shop on the front near the main beach, and we sat there and tried some of the local grapes in a crisp white. Not too shabby!

On our second and indeed last night, we popped into the local Cave, Cellar Dominicain to try some of their wines. The AOC for the area is unsurprisingly Collioure! This co-operative took over the former monastery in 1926 and it certainly makes for a lovely tasting room.

We tried a white, a rose and 3 reds. All very drinkable and all very reasonable price wise (between 8 - 12 euros). The reds were more to my taste, and were different blends of Grenache, Mourvedre and Syrah.

We picked up a few bottles to take into the mountains and went to dinner...

http://cellierdominicain.com/?lang=en

Beautiful Bacchus was everywhere

Wine Tasting in the South of France - Gerard Betrand - Chateau L'Hospitalet

So after a few days inland getting held up by a plethora of tractors, we went out towards the coast. First stop was Chateau L'Hospitalet one of the many vineyards owned by former French Rugby International, Gerard Betrand. My brother knew about his wine from the 5 different wines they sell at Majestic wine.

The setting for the Vineyard was lovely, rolling hills and the sea in the distance. It has a small hotel with a restaurant, pool etc, and a lovely large tasting room.  The tasting room was far more like other tasting rooms I had been to, particularly in California.  The two young people working when we visited were British students on their working abroad year which made it very easy for them to tell us about the wines in English.

In terms of the quality of the wine, this was my favourite of the wines I tasted over the week, but to give you an idea of scale, they produce between 20-30 million bottles a year (the youngsters told us two different figures). Compare that to the 27,000 bottles that La Grange Leon produces (the first vineyard we went to on the day we arrived).

The Chateau is one of 11 vineyards owned by Mr Betrand. We tried 7 different wines, and with the exception of a very light rose, I really enjoyed all of them. It was at this point I really started to regret that we were travelling just with hand luggage and couldn't take any home. I tried to persuade my brother to drive down here in his van next time and load it up with a plethora of lovely wine.

Dad and my brother picked up an expensive bottle for us to drink on our final night, and with a couple more bottles in hand we carried on down to the coast..

I will certainly be heading to Majestic to get some of his smooth bold reds in for long winter evenings...

http://www.gerard-bertrand.com/en/

Wine tasting in the South of France - Saint Chinian

So one of the main differences between everywhere else I have tasted wine in the world, and the Domaines and Caves in France is the size! A lot of the places we visited were very small, and would only open up for business when we arrived. Some weren't even open on a weekend, which seemed a bit of a missed opportunity to me. Also because they don't charge you to try, you do feel compelled to buy. Fortunately they were so nice it was no hardship buying them.

We went to Chateau Bousquette, just down the road from Berlou still in the Saint Chinian AOC. This was a family run business who have been organic since 1972. The lady who served us (who I think was also the owner) had excellent English, so it was really interesting to hear about how they made the wine and how the harvest was going. She also took us out back to look at their steel tanks. As ever we bought some wine - the rose and one of the reds were my favourites. 

http://theorganicwinecompany.com/history/

Then we went to another vineyard a 2 minute drive down the road, Domaine Jougla. Again the reds from this part of the region were very pleasant.

I love Syrah, and it is used a lot down here - either by itself or in a blend, often with Mourverde and Grenache or Carignan. 

Again a lovely little tasting room with one of the owners taking us through the wines. An English lady happened to be there tasting with her Scandinavian sister in law. She'd recently moved to the area so we had a good chat about the wine and what she thought of the area.

Unsurprisingly we purchased some more wine! My brother said it had been around 10 years since he had tried wines in the area at vineyards, and he felt that the wines had really come on in that time, and were much better than he remembered. 

http://www.domainedesjougla.com/