Quick Sips: 2009 Naked Earth Red, Vin dePays d’Oc

“Organic” has become a strong marketing tool, and the top of the label on this $12 red blend from Languedoc trumpets the fact that the wine is “made with organically grown grapes.” Desipte a dumbed-down approach – the wine’s origin is described as “South of France” -- this is a decent blend of merlot, cabernet sauvignon, grenache and carignan. There’s good tannic structure to support the black cherry and blueberry tastes, which lead to a milk-chocolaty finish. I can see it being served in those smaller bottles on flights, in coach, from the U.S. to France. Rating: GOOD. Imported by Vinum International, Napa, California. Received as a press sample.

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Wine tasting: two superb red values from France’s Languedoc

Languedoc in southern France, as I have noted in recent months, represents some of the world’s best wine values. By that I mean, if you choose well, you’re likely to find modestly priced wines of greater interest and dimension than from most other regions. Many Americans are still unfamiliar with the wines (they would have trouble telling you exactly where Langudeoc is much less specific appellations within the region).

Two reds I sampled recently illustrate the Langudeoc value proposition especially well. The first is Domaine de Fontsainte’s 2007 Corbières “Réserve la Demoiselle,” a superb, authentic terroir wine that combines delicious red and dark berry fruit and a deep earthiness. There are lots of other elements here, including fig, mint and rosemary along with cocoa and leather notes. The blend is 60 percent carignan from century-old vines, 30 percent grenache and 10 percent mourvèdre. With a relatively modest 13.5 percent alcohol, this wine would be a perfect match with grilled or pan-seared pork chops. It’s also a real bargain, with the average price listed on wine-searcher.com at about $15.

The second wine is Domaine d’Aupilhac’s 2008 Montpeyroux, a slightly bigger wine with a core of blackberry accented by herb, spice and unsweetened chocolate notes, with alcohol listed at 14 percent.  The village of Montpeyroux is a sub-appellation of the broader Coteaux du Languedoc and this wine is a blend of 30 percent mourvèdre, 25 percent syrah, 25 percent carignan, 16 percent grenache and four percent cinsault. Easy food pairings include grilled beef, lamb and sausage. The average price on wine-searcher.com is about $20 or so. Both wines are imported by Kermit Lynch Wine Merchant, Berkeley, California. 

As I found on my visit to the region in May, Languedoc, which churns out more wine than any other region in the world, is trying mightily to move past its quantity-over-quality image. These wines are a testament that Languedoc is succeeding. Wines received as press samples.

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Sips: Enjoying an $11 Fitou from France’s Languedoc

I doubt that many casual American wine drinkers have ever enjoyed or even heard of Fitou, an appellation in France’s  Languedoc just before that region gives way to the the vineyards of Roussillon to the west. In fact, when I visited Languedoc in May on a tour organized by the region’s trade group, we never made it to Fitou. I wondered what the name meant and found the  answer in a nice snapshot of the region on thewinedoctor.com.  In “Occitan,” it says, referring to the ancient language of the region (Languedoc means language of Oc), “’fitou’ means border or frontier and Fitou once sat at the border between France and Catalonia.”

Fitou is a red-wine appellation, and I reacquainted myself with it the other night when I opened and enjoyed a sample I had received for review. Mont Tauch’s 2008 Fitou is from one of the region’s better-known cooperatives, which dominate production, and is a medium-bodied wine with gentle tannins. It’s not profound but has decent complexity and is about as  as good as it gets at a suggested retail price of $11, which means you can probably find it for a dollar or two less.

As it opened up with a little air, I got both blackberry and raspberry tastes along with herb, green olive and cinnamon notes. The blend is 40 percent syrah, 30 percent grenache and 30 percent carignan, the region’s signature variety. I chilled it for a few minutes to make it more refreshing on a warm summer evening, then enjoyed it in front of a good movie with a plate of pasta tossed with sliced cherry tomatoes, garlic and parsley sautéed in olive oil. It will also match even better with grilled sausage, pork or chicken. Imported by USA Wine West, Sausalito, California. Received as a press sample.

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Video: Five great summer white wines

Last night I joined Chuck Scarborough on his NY Nightly News program on WNBC’s New York Nonstop Channel to talk about five exciting white wines for summer. For detailed information about the wines, see the post just below this one.

View more videos at: http://www.nbcnewyork.com/

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Sips: Five Top White Wines for Summer

When I was asked to put together a summer wine segment and appear on WNBC’s New York Nonstop channel, I immediately thought of lighter whites that are easy to drink, match well with a variety of simply prepared foods and are good values. Beyond that, I wanted to introduce viewers to some wines they might not have heard about that are very much worth exploring. With that in mind, I chose five wines from five countries, each made from a different grape. What unifies them is that they are refreshing as both aperitif and food wines, especially with fish and simple chicken dishes, and are made without fermentation or aging in oak. Although I have nothing against chardonnay, I decided to keep chardonnay out of the mix this time around because it is so well known and popular. So, enjoy these five whites with your summer dining. I’ll have many more to share in coming weeks.

Channing Daughters 2010 Sauvignon Blanc “Mudd West Vineyard,” Long Island. $20. Light, delicate and elegant sauvignon from this Bridgehampton winery. The wine is made from grapes grown in a North Fork vineyard and shows subtle green apple, herb and citrus notes.

La Cala 2009 Vermentino di Sardegna, Sardinia, Italy. $12. A delicious example of this Mediterranean variety, this is an easy-to-drink yet interesting wine that will pair well with a variety of foods. Pear and apple notes and a good deal of minerality. A natural for linguine with white clam sauce. Imported by Palm Bay International, Boca Raton, Florida.

Domaine Félines Jourdan 2010 Picpoul de Pinet, Languedoc, France. $13. One of my favorite wines of the summer so far. Picpoul de Pinet is the name of the grape and it’s grown only in Languedoc very close to the Mediterranean Sea. The domaine, which I visited last month on a tour of Languedoc, overlooks oyster farms, and the wine, in fact, is just perfect with oysters. Very fresh with a little brininess, good acidity and lots of complexity. Notes of lemon, herbs, a little honey and vanilla and a good deal of minerality on the finish. Imported by Gabriella Importers, Bohemia, New York.

Viore 2010 Verdejo, Rueda, Spain. $9. I’ve been tasting a lot of verdejos in the last month or so and was newly impressed with this variety, which is the most important white grape in the Rueda region. This one is quite racy and almost jumps out of the glass. Complex with notes of apricot, tangerine, some herbs and smoke on the long finish. Imported by Vintage Wines, Staten Island, New York.

Trapiche 2010 Torrontés, Mendoza, Argentina. $8. Torrontes has become a new darling among fresh and lively white wines, and I saved this one for last on tonight’s TV segment because it’s the most aggressive of the five whites. The variety is highly aromatic and this one, beyond the flower notes, is like biting into an orange. It’s a warm-weather thirst quencher and a real bargain at just $8. Imported by Frederick Wildman and Sons, New York.

Sips: For fish, shellfish and beyond, think Picpoul de Pinet from France’s Languedoc

Ask casual wine drinkers about Picpoul de Pinet, as I did with a couple of friends this week, and you’re likely to get looks of confusion and bemusement. It’s understandable. Picpoul de Pinet, though not uncommon in this country, is well off the beaten wine path. The first thing to know about Picpoul, as it’s called, is that it’s a white wine from France, from an area on the southern edge of the Languedoc region on the Mediterranean Sea. The second thing to know is that Picpoul de Pinet is the name of both the wine and the grape. This is unusual in France, where the name and the grape variety are usually two different things. (Sancerre, for example, takes the name of the town in which the grapes are grown, but the grape is the sauvignon blanc). The third thing to remember is that Picpoul is a largely underappreciated summer wine value. Find a bottle that you like and you will have discovered a superb wine for fish and shellfish, particularly oysters, and a refreshing and original aperitif wine.

I was reminded of Picpoul’s charms last week as I traveled through Languedoc and tasted several examples. Picpoul is  Languedoc’s answer to the Loire Valley’s Muscadet and deserves to be better known. After one forgettable bottle we ordered at a restaurant, I was introduced the next day to the wines of Claude Jourdan right,  and her Domaine Félines Jourdan, which makes about 15,000 cases of Picpoul, in addition to other wines, each year. The property, which is located on the banks of a large lagoon fed by the Mediterranean and used for oyster farms, is in a cool terroir that benefits from the Mediterranean breezes and produces refreshing wines with ample acidity. That was immediately apparent on tasting the 2010 Picpoul, a delicious blend of grapes from three different sites within the property. The wine, fermented and aged in stainless steel, is fresh and round with lemon, honey and vanilla tastes as well as a distinct minerality and a subtle briny note that reflect the domaine’s proximity to the sea and its chalk, limestone and clay soils. Claude Jourdan, who took over the domaine in 1996 from her mother, noted that the grapes are picked quite late (in late September). “I am looking for a maturity in the grape, a roundness,” she said. The wine sells for about $14 in the United States and.

Other notable wines from Domaine Féline Jourdan include  the 2010 Languedoc Blanc, a blend of 90 percent roussanne and 10 percent picpoul with apple, spice and grapefruit notes, and a trio of attractive Vins de Pays – red, white and rose – that are real bargains at $8.

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An American in France produces some memorable Languedoc wines

NARBONNE, France -- One of the most gorgeous vineyards I have  seen lies just outside this small Languedoc city a stone’s throw from the Mediterranean Sea. Château des Karantes, named after a Bishop of Carcassonne who owned the property hundreds of   years ago, is surrounded by steep cliffs on three sides, with an old  bunker (top right in the picture) still visible atop one of them, a reminder that the property was controlled by the Germans during World War II. Walter Knysz 3d, an American from Michigan whose family is a part-owner of the domaine, reminded me while looking over the property that the Nazis believed the Allied invasion would take place here in the south of France rather than in Normandy.     

Today, these are far happier times for the estate of 470 acres, a little over 100 of them vineyards. This week, Château  des Karantes’s 2009 AOP Languedoc La Clape Rouge was named best Languedoc-Roussillon red wine over 10 euros ($14 or so)  in Decanter Magazine’s World Wine Awards. “To win that award for this wine is huge,” Knysz (right) told me as dusk settled over his vineyards in La Clape, which, with its extreme southern location in Languedoc,  produces some of the region’s most luscious and memorable reds. That reputation was upheld as I tasted the new release a short time later at a restaurant here in Narbonne with Knysz, his winemaker Nicolas Laverny and Christopher Laidebeure, the sales manager. The wine, which will have a suggested price of $23 in the U.S., is a blend of 50 percent grenache, 40 percent syrah and 10 percent mourvèdre grown on the clay and limestone soils that dominate the property. Its beautiful structure, concentrated fruit, mainly plum and blackberry, subtle oak integration and attractive herbal notes derived from the adjacent scrubland known as garrigue make the wine stand out.

Other notable wines from the Karantes portfolio include the 2010 AOP Languedoc Blanc, $22, a blend of bourboulenc, grenache blanc, roussanne and vermentino that is fresh and easy to drink with honey, apricot and lemon notes, a bit of brine and good acidity; the bright 2010 Rosé des Karantes, $12, a mourvèdre-grenache-syrah summer bargain with flavors of strawberry and raspberry, some herb and spice notes and a vanilla touch on the long finish; and the intensely concentrated 2006 Diamant, $60, which is 100 percent syrah, spent 18 months in large new French oak barrels and is marked by intense fruit, mainly blackberry, a good deal of spice and a black licorice note.

The Karantes team was over the top the other night, and it deserves to be.

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Winemakers try to carve out a new image for France’s vast Languedoc

NARBONNE, France – Just about everywhere I’ve gone in the last three days here in Languedoc, winemakers lament how this vast region in southern France has suffered for decades from its image as a bastion of quantity over quality wines. They say it parenthetically, however, because there seems to be a great deal of momentum these days for repairing that image – about getting the word out that some first-class wines are being made here. Languedoc is, in fact, the world’s largest wine-producing region, with more than one third of its production shipped abroad. While the U.S. market is growing, it accounts for only five percent of exports, behind China and Canada, both at eight percent. “In the U.S., we have no real image,” said Jérôme Villaret, managing director of the CIVL, the region’s trade organization. Beyond, perhaps, the most broad and basic Languedoc AOC appellation, the wines are largely unrecognizable to most casual American wine drinkers. Ask them about Corbières, Faugéres or Limoux; about Pic Saint-Loup, Picpoul-de-Pinet or Saint-Chinian, and they  will draw a blank. As one agent doing business in the region told me, this would be like asking the average Frenchman to understand the difference between Napa and Sonoma.

And yet, as I am finding in my travels here, there are some superb and original wines being made by passionate, smart and creative winemakers producing authentic terroir wines, many of them under $20. One need only pay a visit, for example, to Claude Jourdan’s Domaine Félines Jourdan overlooking the oyster farms on a vast saltwater lake to realize that her fresh, briny and deliciously fruity Picpoul-de-Pinet can (and should) give Muscadet a run for its money for fish and shellfish. Or spend  some time with Regis Valentin at Château de Lancyre in Pic-Saint-Loup to see what he does with the white roussanne and marsanne varieties and with a range of reds based on syrah, grenache and other grapes. Or taste and talk with  Pierre Bories, right, at Château les Ollieux Romanis in the Boutenac area of Corbières, or Charles-Walter Pacaud at Domaine La Croix Chaptal in the Terraces du Larzac, to see how they are giving new direction and distinction to carignan, a traditional red variety that, in the right hands, produces wines of finesse and elegance.

These are just a few of the winemakers who have impressed me, many of them growing grapes organically in Languedoc, which, with its dry climate, is producing almost a third of its grapes this way and leads in organic production in France. Today, I’m off to Saint-Chinian and Minervois in search of what I hope will be more revelations in this vast and largely undiscovered land.

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On a brilliant afternoon in France’s Languedoc, a wine tasting like no other

I joined more than a thousand people in the Languedoc region of southern France yesterday afternoon at what must be one of the world’s ultimate walk-around wine tastings. Instead of being confined to a room, we hiked our way on a brilliantly sunny and windy day up and down the parched, gravelly trails of La Clape, a a sub-zone of the large Coteaux du Languedoc appellation not more than a couple of miles or so from the Mediterranean Sea. The area is known as  a “garrigue,” a landscape of low scrubland on limestone soils,  small slopes and plateaus. At this time of year it is already overgrown with wild herbs, including rosemary,  thyme and juniper, as well as almond trees and fennel plants that practically trip you as you make your way up and down the dusty paths. All around these trails are vineyards, still light green, their grapes just beginning to form. A few months from now they will  yield the fruit that defines this place -- grenache, mourvèdre, syrah, carignan and cinsault among the reds and rosés; grenache blanc, bourboulenc, roussanne, among others, for the whites.

In our three-and-a-half mile hike, there were six stops to be made, featuring six courses of food and anywhere from four to eight wines to be sampled at each. The dishes included a gazpacho of artichoke and fennel, a “marmalade” of eggplant and anchovies, a scallop and crayfish duo,  a “parmentier” of duck confit and, of course, a little chèvre to round things out. At least 25 wines were served -- white, pink and red -- ranging from the rustic to the refined, and I will describe some of my favorites here in coming days. But for now, have a look at some of the photographs I took at this unique and memorable event.

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