Wine therapy

If anything could pull me out of my depression about the lost barn then a wine tasting at VinEcole would be a pretty good bet.

I had booked my place at 'The rising stars of the Languedoc' tasting some weeks ago. As a result of a recommendation from Matthew Stubbs, owner of VinEcole, I found myself chauffeuring two Irish guests there as well - I can't complain, without the referral they wouldn't have been staying here at 42rvh and I was driving there anyway so two extra people in the car made no difference.

There were two of the featured winemakers present, which made the tasting of their wines more interesting and a large diverse group covering eight different nationalities.

As I am increasingly finding from these tastings and my own exploration of the wine of the region, there are a great number of very very exciting and delicious white wines being made here in the region.

I was totally stunned by the four whites that I tasted tonight - one from an estate whose red wines I have admired for a long time (Mas du Soleilla), one from Saint Chinian (Mas Champart), a fabulous red wine region but not the first great white I have had from there, one from Collioure (Domaine de la Rectorie), which by chance I had also served at dinner with Daniel and Cecile last Saturday and one from Limoux (Domaine de Mouscaillo), a beautifully balanced and clean chardonnay and I had the pleasure of sitting next to the winemaker for the night.

Equally, I was disappointed by the red wines on offer. The Languedoc produces a massive amount of fruity, spicy, delicious red wine and the standard is improving all the time too. As a result, I think that many producers are starting to try and produce something a little bit different - to try and make it stand out and be recognised and yet, what they should be doing, in my mind, is just making the best example of the best wines of this region because there is nothing wrong with them if they get it right and they market them properly.

Rant, rant - I'm in that sort of mood.

Tonight I sampled a 100% cabernet franc (Domaine Gayda), which had a fragrant fruity nose but was strong and powerful and dry - there is a reason that this grape is used in blends, a Corbieres that was 95% mourvedre (Ch La Baronne) that was so tannic that it sucked all the moisture and feeling from my mouth - ditto the comment re blending, a 100% carignan from the Roussillon (Clot de l'Oum) which blew my head off with it's intensity - ditto blending encore, and a 90% syrah (Ch Canet) which was the only red of the four that I really liked.

I adore all those grapes but I think I might prefer them in a classic Minervois or Corbieres GSM blend rather than as an 'almost' single cepage wine. Interestingly, Syrah can be quite an obnoxious wine on it's own - just think of Aussie Shiraz - same thing, more jazzy antipodean name but this syrah was a stand-out wine.

Maybe it helped having Floris, the Dutch owner of the estate, there to explain it all. He even bought along a bottle of the just pressed 2009 wine so that we could compare it to the 2007 we were tasting - how fantastic was that - these grapes had been harvested over the last few weeks and just pressed and this was the initial result.

This is what wine buyers taste to assess the quality of the vintage and to make their expert opinions as to whether it will be great or not. Well I can tell you that 2009 will be a great vintage in the Languedoc - the summer drought has reduced quantity but the quality is great. The Ch Canet 2009 tasted of raw red fruit but it was already a better wine than many other finished products I have tasted and it won't be ready for consumption or sale for another year.

The 2007 was as soft and round and fruity as a lovingly prepared Syrah could ever be - joy.

So what's my point? Well just that wine constantly and consistently surprises and amuses me - and that's the beauty of it - always a lovely, exciting and new discovery to be made, always a new winemaker to meet and get to know, always a new taste experience. I love it.

On the other hand, just don't mention barns to me.