Our favourite wines and makers - Languedoc and elsewhere in France
Here are some of our favourites - we have visited them all in the past year or so! The names vary widely in their scope - Corbières and Minervois are both substantial appellations from the area west of Narbonne, while Muscat de Lunel and Clairette de Bellegarde are small local appellations from the eastern end of the Languedoc. Picpoul de Pinet and Pic Saint Loup (both specific small areas in the central Launguedoc) are strictly local subdivisions of the huge Côteaux du Languedoc appellation - wines produced in a wide variety of styles from the Rhône to beyond Narbonne - but both aspire to more independent status.
We have added some wines and makers from other areas of France we know well, again visited since spring 2006 - they are not in any sense a complete selection of French wines or even of our favourites, but they are wines we particularly enjoy from domaines we like to visit. Our link with Burgundy goes back to a family present for Jon's 50th birthday of a 'share' in the Jacob vineyard from 3D Wines, from which he moved to the Beaujolais crû, Côte de Brouilly; the Diois wines of course we got to know through our twinning links, while the Lirac is one of many from the Rhône valley we have discovered over the years, in this case like the Picpoul and Minervois via our trawling of the Wine Society lists.
Corbières Côteaux du Languedoc Pic Saint Loup Minervois
Muscat de Lunel Picpoul de Pinet Clairette de Bellegarde
Clairette de Die Lirac Côte de Brouilly Bourgogne
Corbières Appellation d'Origine Controlée (AOC)
Château Aiguilloux - Marthe & François Lemarié, 11200 Thézan-lès-Corbières
Good rosé and excellent reds including Tradition for earlier drinking and 2 cuvées - Les Trois Seigneurs and Cuvée Anne Georges, the latter named for their two children - all made from different combinations of the 3 grape varieties permitted in the AOC, i.e. syrah, grenache and carignan.
We have visited the vineyard 3 times, twice in the late 1990s and again this autumn. The setting, on the road south of the village of Montséret, is stunning in a broad valley with the high hills of the Corbières all around.
Their son Georges, by the way; runs the excellent Fleur du Thym restaurant in a quiet back street near the centre of Narbonne. Vineyard 04 68 43 32 71; restaurant 04 68 32 42 21.
Côteaux du Languedoc AOC and Vins de Pays (VdP)
Domaine Le Nouveau Monde - Jacques Gauch, Vendres Plage, 34350 Vendres.
Marvellous range of both red and white wines, the VdP from vines nearer the sea, and AOC from the Terrasses de Béziers, a plateau between the rivers Aude and Orb south of the city. In whites there is a good chardonnay and an outstanding chasan, from a relatively new hybrid grape variety (chardonnay crossed with palomino, the sherry grape known locally as listan); some reds are from blends of grapes but the outstanding top of the range is a pure mourvèdre, Cuvée Gabriel-Émile, with great keeping potential.
This vineyard is almost as far as you can go on the road to the sea at Vendres Plage, and you can combine your visit with a walk on the beach. We found it for the first time this autumn, listed in the guides but also on the recommendation of a French friend who has known the family and drunk the wines for years! Phone 04 67 37 33 68. See also Grès St Paul below.
La Gravette - village co-operative at Corconne
Among the many celebrated names here, our visit this year was to this village co-operative in the shadow of the Pic. Pic Saint Loup itself is a huge fin-shaped rock visible across most of south-east Languedoc (including from the coast near Lunel).
The Co-op both makes wines and sells those of member domaines, including a good rosé La Toutourel VdP, and some excellent red Pic St Loup (AOC Côteaux du Languedoc).
Corconne is on the D17 north of Montpellier (D45 just south of Quissac) - phone 04 66 77 32 75.
Château Sainte-Eulalie - Isabelle Coustal, 34210 La Livinière
The small village of La Livinière has its own AOC within the much larger terroir of the AOC Minervois. Mme Coustal has quickly acquired an excellent reputation for her red wines through the Wine Society in the UK which first brought her to wider attention with an outstanding rosé in 2004.
The vineyard is above the village to the north. Phone 04 68 91 42 72.
Muscat de Lunel AOC and Côteaux du Languedoc AOC
Château Grès Saint Paul - Jean-Philippe Servière, Route de Restinclières, 34400 Lunel
This is our favourite (so far) local vineyard near Lunel. There is a wide range of excellent wines, white and red, including the impeccable Sévillane Muscat de Lunel and other muscats both sweet and dry (for an explanation of sweet wines see our wine notes page). The red AOC wines are equally impressive; Romanis (for more immediate drinking) and Antonin (barrel aged and longer-keeping) are both typical syrah/grenache/mourvèdre blends, while Syrhus is 100% syrah with power and warmth to rival the northern Rhône.
The Domaine is on the D171 north of Lunel (cross the railway and canal, and before your reach the A9 Autoroute) - there are signs from the N113 in Lunel-Viel. Phone 04 67 71 27 90. Website (recently relaunched and very interesting) www.gres-saint-paul.com
Domaine Félines Jourdan - Marie-Hélène Jourdan, 34140 Mèze
Picpoul de Pinet is a very local production from the white piquepoul grape in the area round the small village of Pinet north of Mèze. The wine is seen loally as an ideal accompaniment to the oysters and other seafood from the neighbouring Étang de Thau, but the Jourdan Picpoul is in a different league, richer and more complex, and a favourite of Wine Society buyers and members alike for the last two years. There are also very good VdP wines - the red Sensations and a barrel aged sweet muscat which is delicious.
Finding this vineyard is one of those peculiarly French adventures involving 2km of deserted road. From the centre of Mèze you follow Écosite signs and carry on beyond it for another km; there are other routes on the map but they can lead to divorce or despair! Phone 04 67 43 69 29.
Mas Carlot - Nathalie Blanc-Marès, 30127 Bellegarde
Mme Blanc-Marès (married to Cyril Marès of neighbouring Mas des Bressades, which makes excellent reds) specilaises in this delicious single-variety wine. Clairette used to be a ubiquitous, high-yielding staple grape variety of the Languedoc wine lake, but now survives only in blends and in two AOC pockets in the area (the other, Clairette du Languedoc, is in the Hérault valley north-east of Béziers) as well, of course, as giving its name to the sparkling Clairette de Die.
On a casual visit we found a warm welcome from Mme B-M and a willing offer of tasting in a simple Cave/reception area just off the D3 from Bellegarde to Manduel - fairly easy to find compared to her husband's base, nearly a km up a rough track - and no tastings. Phone 04 66 01 11 83.
Clairette de Die (and other wines from the Diois - and Tunisia!)
Cave Didier Cornillon, 26410 St Roman-en-Diois
Didier was one of our earliest vigneron acquaintances in France - we met him in 1993 soon after he had broken away from the Cave Co-operative in Die to set up as an independent wine maker, and we have followed the success of his enterprise with interest ever since. His Clairette de Die Tradition (and the special cuvée Florilège in particular) is an excellent example of the unique sweet sparkling wine of the Diois, made largely or wholly from muscat grapes. This is a bit confusing - the name of the appellation comes from a grape variety, clairette, which is sometimes mixed with muscat in this wine but is mainly used to make the dry sparkling wine now known as Crémant de Die. Didier's crémant has an entry in the latest Hachette guide to the wines of France incidentally.
Recently Didier has branched out into Tunisia, and produces outstanding red, white and rosé wines there, sold through his Cave in the Diois. Phone 04 75 21 81 79.
Domaine Maby, 30216 Tavel
Richard Maby is the latest in the family line to run this family domaine which has been dealing with the Wine Society for well over 100 years! His Lirac rouge is a great example of right-bank southern Rhône and all the wines from the domaine, including the iconic rosé Tavel, are excellent. Phone 04 66 50 03 40.
Côte de Brouilly (and Brouilly - both Beaujolais crûs)
Domaine Les Roches Bleues, 69460 Odenas
Christiane and Dominique Lacondemine run this family domaine on the southern slope of Mont Brouilly where the vines of the Côte de Brouilly appellation grow - the Brouilly vines grow on the plains surrounding the hill. The welcoming Lacondemines make just the two crû wines, and we met them through 3D wines who run the vineyard sharing scheme Jon joined in the early 1990s. Now we have moved on but we still visit this domaine regularly and are delighted to buy their wines. Both (like all red Beaujolais) are made from gamay grapes. The Brouilly is for fairly early drinking (2-3 years) while the Côte de Brouilly keeps rather longer. Incidentally there are 8 other Beaujolais crûs: Saint-Amour, Juliénas, Chénas, Moulin-à-Vent, Fleurie, Chiroubles Morgon and Régnié. Phone 04 74 03 43 11.
Bourgogne (including Hautes Côtes de Beaune, Savigny les Beaune and many more in the Côte d'Or, whose golden name is well illustrated on sunny autumn days among the vines)
This section includes several domaines we have visited regularly and recently.
Domaine Lucien Jacob, Echevronne, 21420 Savigny-les-Beaune
This was our first contact with Burgundy in 1995 when Mary visited them to set up Jon's 50th birthday present, a 'vineyard share' through 3D Wines. Since then we have visited the Cave almost every year, and have got to know Jean-Michel Jacob (wine-maker, son of Lucien) and his wife Christine quite well. J-M was instrumental in improving strains of pinot noir for use in the higher vineyards of the Hautes Côtes de Beaune and this wine was where we began with them; since then we have enjoyed more exalted wines from their expanding production including Savigny les Beaune, Beaune, Gevrey Chambertin and Chambolle Musigny as well as excellent white chardonnay and aligoté and some of the best crème de cassis and crème de framboise you can find in the Côte d'Or. Christine is originally English so it's a good place to visit if your French is not so good! They also have a gîte to let in the village. Phone 03 80 21 52 15.
Domaine Henri Naudin-Ferrand, 21700 Magny-les-Villers
We discovered this domaine run by 2 sisters in the village next to Echevronne, soon after we began visiting the Jacobs. The vineyards are partly in the Hautes Côtes de Beaune but partly in the Hautes Côtes de Nuits - that is, in the higher ground above Nuits Saint Georges. Like the Jacobs the domaine also owns parcels of vines in other well-known parts of the Côte d'Or. Here we have bought some good reds, but we have found the white wines particularly interesting - a Hautes Côtes de Beaune blanc with some pinot blanc mixed with the predominant chardonnay, and some excellent aligoté, one verions of which is slightly sparkling (naturellement perlé). Aligoté is a grape that used to be used to make cheap wine, often mixed with crème de cassis or other fruit alcohols to make kir and counteract its acidity - now (while it still makes good kir) it's often good enough to drink on its own, as these examples are! Phone 03 80 62 91 50, website (a good one) www.naudin-ferrand.com.
Domaine P. Dubreuil-Fontaine, 21420 Pernand-Vergelesses
Some years ago on a visit to Provence a caviste (wine merchant) we visited recommended that we call in on this domaine - we did, and were received with great courtesy and bought our first ever grand crû Burgundy, red Corton and white Corton Charlemagne from the famous hill of Corton next to the village. After several years' gap we returned with friends in 2006 to find as courteous a welcome and as excellent wines as ever. The cave is open regularly - not all the top producers in Burgundy are - and a tasting there is a real education. They also have a good website: www.dubreuil-fontaine.com - phone 03 80 21 55 43
Le site sera disponible aussi en Français.