Wines I'm Drinking: Two Languedoc Rosés

After tasting four ultra-cheap local Cinsault rosés earlier in the week, I decided to move upmarket a bit. Last night I tried a rosé from St. Chinian and another from a maker in the nearby town of Pezenas. Both were excellent but still inexpensive at under €8 (less than $10). Tasting notes follow. The review of the four Cinsault wines is here.

2009 Domaine Monplezy Plaisirs Languedoc Rosé
Made from a blend of Cinsault, Grenache, and Syrah down the road from where I'm staying--just outside of Pezenas on the road to Roujan. The label is decorated with a hoopoe.

The wine was very pale in color--delicate and barely pink, a flesh pink, but I could tell this wine had more character than the four very pale rosés I tasted earlier this week just by smelling it. It had the very fresh scent of new wine not long after fermentation has finished. There were distant strawberry scents, and something sappy and fresh as well, suggestive of raw zucchini. I was also put in mind of fine soap--although there was nothing soapy about the taste of the wine. It had considerably more presence on the palate than the pale color suggested it would. Delicate, but with a distinctive sappiness again suggestive of fresh vegetables--but in a good way. Fruitier and somewhat sweeter on the finish. Nicely balanced, with none of the sharp acidity of the less expensive wines mentioned above. Significantly more alcohol than any of those wines as well, which gave it a little fire on the finish as well. Very tasty.

2007 Schisteil Saint-Chinian Rosé
The label on this one is a bit confusing--due more to my relative ignorance of the wines of this area than to any fault of the label probably. The appellation is clearly Saint-Chinian, but the wine is also labeled Coteaux de Berlou (which makes some sense, as Berlou is one of the villages of the Saint Chinian appellation). However, I can't find the name of a producer on the bottle. "Schisteil" is a brand name the producer uses, referring to the local schist soils and the sun (soleil in French). The wine is a blend of Grenache, Syrah, and Mourvedre.

Whoever the maker is, I loved the wine. This is the most distinctive rosé I've had in a very long time. It was deeply colored, in sharp contrast with the majority of the rosé wines I've seen in the local stores. I'd say this spends at least a day on the skins, whereas the paler wines look like they are pressed immediately. It was a beautiful deep pink tending toward orange. It reminded me of some of the darkest varieties of salmon. It had wonderful roasted, toasted scents but also jammy fruit scents--fig jam just cooked down and still hot. Hints of butterscotch or caramel. Crème brûéee may be closer. On the palate, there was again something about it that put me in mind of caramel and toast, and it was comparatively alcoholic, suggesting Calvados, but the wine was not at all sweet or as strong as brandy (naturally). It had a sappy freshness and decent acid. It could perhaps have used a trifle more acid, but, all in all, this was a very interesting, unusual, delicious wine. I drank too much of it, but it was very hard to put down.

On the road (Europe 2010): Pouzolles--First Impressions

Pouzolles, halfway between Narbonne and Montpellier, and about 30 minutes from the Mediterranean Sea at Agde, is a little postcard of a town. The streets are narrow and hilly in places. The buildings are mostly built of stuccoed stone. There is a small 12th century church and a privately-owned 13th century chateau. There is not much here, really. There is not much to do. But that suits me fine. The plan is simply to live and work here over the summer and to travel a bit, as work permits.

There are three or four other villages in the immediate area accessible by bicycle or car that offer small shops, restaurants, and cafés (the photo shows the market at Servian this morning). There are stretches of neatly tended vineyard land between the villages. This area mostly produces the vin de pays Côtes de Thongue, which appears to allow a wide variety of grapes, including Grenache, Cinsault, Mourvedre, Viognier, and other varieties traditional in the Languedoc Rousillon area, as well as international varieties, such as Syrah, Merlot, Cabernet Sauvignon, Sauvignon Blanc, and Chardonnay. They seem to make a great deal of rosé here, which is nice to see, as I like rosé. The wines range widely in price, but some of it is surprisingly inexpensive; twice a week (Tuesday and Friday mornings) the local rosé is available from tanks (you bring your own container) at 6 euros for five liters--which works out to $1.37 a bottle--and it's quite drinkable. Until a month ago, I'm told, it was only 5 euros for five liters--and it had been for 14 years (what an outrageous price increase). As I begin to explore some of the wines of good reputation in the area, I will report.

Swifts, house martins, and barn swallows are everywhere. The swifts hunt incessantly over the rooftops. They are like black sickles in the sky. They dive and turn, beating their wings as fast as a bat and then they suddenly hold them still to glide in tight arcs for a moment before shooting off in a new direction, wings beating furiously again. The swifts and martins are nesting. The martins appear to make mud "pots" under the eaves of the buildings, similar to those made by our Cliff Swallows. The swifts disappear into cracks in buildings and other crevices. Walking in the more wooded areas, I've heard warblers, but I have yet to see any. They like to hide and tease with their songs--but I have yet to do any real exploring. So far on this trip I have added 13 birds to my life list nevertheless (Rock Pipit, Linnet, Greater Black-backed Gull, European Goldfinch, Wood Pigeon, Chaffinch, Jackdaw, European Blackbird, Black-headed gull, Coal Tit, House Martin, Common Swift, and the European Roller). I hope to add many more.