There 144 products in this category
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Domaine Danjou-Banessy
Old vine Grenache grown on decomposed black schist with a limestone sub soil with some quartz, that produces something amazing. Ethereal, sublime and fesh, this achieves a level of finesse akin to fine red Burgundy. Remarkable, special, very good indeed.
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Domaine Danjou-Banessy
Old vine Grenache grown on decomposed black schist with a limestone sub soil with some quartz, that produces something amazing. Ethereal, sublime and fresh, this achieves a level of finesse akin to fine red Burgundy. Remarkable, special, very good indeed.
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Domaine des Soulanes
100% old vine Carignan that was bred all in concrete tanks. Notes of leather, black cherries, plums and savoury herbs all emerge from this medium-bodied, fresh, lively wine. This is seamless and gorgeous stuff from Daniel Laffite.
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Domaine des Schistes
Produced from beautiful organic Muscat grapes grown on a great schist terroir with a top-soil of schistous marl in the commune of Tautavel, facing south-east. The grapes are composed of 80% Muscat Petits Grains and 20% Muscat d'Alexandrie. Yields are very low at around 20 hl/ha. A manual harvest takes place in the morning, when the grapes have an alcoholic potential of 14.5°/15°. Very long direct pressing, at low pressure, followed by coarse settling overnight in the open air. Fermentation takes place in vat, at a temperature of 20-23°C. It is stopped by mutage with certified organic neutral alcohol (representing a maximum of 10% of the final volume). Aging takes place on fine lees, in closed stainless steel vats, sheltered from oxidation. This is the finest and freshest Muscat de Rivesaltes we've found. We are very happy to be shipping this great example from the finest of growers to the UK.
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Domaine des Trinités
Simon Coulshaw makes natural wines: no cultured yeast, enzymes, chemical tannins or fining product and farming with respect to the environment, although the domaine isn't certified organic. jancisrobinson.com Review: Full bottle 1,126 g. 65% Grenache Noir, 20% Syrah, 15% Carignan, organically and biodynamically farmed. Out of the 22 ha that Simon Coulshaw has under vine, 16 are in Faugère and 6 in Pézenas. But, as Coulshaw points out, they are more than 30 km from Pézenas, so while vineyards for the appellation are typically on villafranchian and clay-limestone soils or on black, grey and blue schist, this vineyard is on golden schist. (Coulshaw at this point goes into a charming rhapsody about how beguilingly beautiful schist is...) Le Pech Mege is a single vineyard, the most isolated of all his Pézenas vineyards. Spontaneous fermentation, stainless steel, low sulphite additions, minimal interventions. Coulshaw recommends that this wine is drunk cooler than room temperature. I'd pop it in the fridge for 10–15 minutes to get it down to around 16 °C/61 °F. “It's rare that a Languedoc wine (or any wine, to be frank) can pull off the tightrope balance of pert, outright cheeky freshness and straightforward fruit whilst being pretty dense and concentrated at the same time. This wine defies the laws of gravity. At its heart, there is a deep tobacco-leaf wrapped, chocolate-streaked, umeboshi-plum and soy-umami savouriness, notes of reduced beef stock and game glimmering in the gloaming. But radiating out towards the edges of the wine is this confident, gregarious, sap-filled mulberry fruit and puppy-playful acidity that seems to roll around with gleeful abandon. Supple, lightly astringent but fully ripe tannins. A wine of the vineyard, of the vintage; a wine that shines with a sense of who and what it is”. GV (TC) Alcohol 14% Score 17/20 When to drink 2022 – 2026 Published on 29 Nov 2021 Date tasted 29 Nov 2021 Reviewer Tamlyn Currin
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Mas Sibert
Natural Petit Verdot raised in amphora by vigneron Simon Bertschinger. The winery is based in Fos, but the vineyards are just south of Faugeres in the clay foothills. Simon is doing some remarkabke stuff with some interesting grape varieties. Bright and vigourous but with depth and focus. Brilliant wine.
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Chateau Rives-Blanques
This domaine's showpiece wine is made using the best Chardonnay grapes, fermented and matured in French oak. Burgundian and silky in style, "Lemon zest and lemon juice to the fore here, a bright, zesty expression, with pear and apple too, lightly on its feet....it has lovely freshness". Natalie Earl, Decanter Magazine From jancisrobinson.com Certified organic. From four plots of 26 to 46-year old vines grown amongst oak trees at 350m and on rolled pebbles and limestone. Hand-picked and hand-sorted, low-pressure pressing, free-run juice only. Malolactic fermentation is in 225-litre oak barrels, which is where the wines are aged. Gentle lees stirring for the first four months. Unfined. Château Rive-Blanques now belongs to Pierre Bories’ Artisans & Partisans group of estates. "Rich, nutty (even a little caramelised) and streaked with fresh garrigue. As with their Dédicace Chenin, the acidity feels softer and more muted than I’ve come to expect with R-B wines, but there is a firm hazelnut and walnut framework around the fruit, so the texture and structure is there. Touch of liquorice on the finish gives it a nice twist". 16.5/20
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Domaine des Schistes
Produced from beautiful organic Muscat grapes grown on a great schist terroir with a top-soil of schistous marl in the commune of Tautavel, facing south-east. The grapes are composed of 80% Muscat Petits Grains and 20% Muscat d'Alexandrie. Yields are very low at around 20 hl/ha. A manual harvest takes place in the morning, when the grapes have an alcoholic potential of 14.5°/15°. Very long direct pressing, at low pressure, followed by coarse settling overnight in the open air. Fermentation takes place in vat, at a temperature of 20-23°C. It is stopped by mutage with certified organic neutral alcohol (representing a maximum of 10% of the final volume). Aging takes place on fine lees, in closed stainless steel vats, sheltered from oxidation. This is the finest and freshest Muscat de Rivesaltes we've found. We are very happy to be shipping this great example from the finest of growers to the UK.
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Domaine des Trinités
This Syrah blend with soft black fruits and spice has been shaped by the sunbaked rocky soils of the unmistakable and very definate Faugeres terroir. A herbal, spicy bouquet is followed by youthful red cherries and supple mineral character derived from the schist rich soils. One of our greatest value wines.
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Domaine Danjou-Banessy
Natural, biodynamic and vegan. Grenache, Carignan and Mourvedre from 80 year old vines, Made without filtering or fining. Pale but gorgeous mid red colour. At first on the nose, you are like "What even is that?". Whatever it is, you know that you like it. Elegant, subtle fruit is intermixed with gentle herb, earth and savoury characters. Deep and wonderful. On the palate the wine is elegant and deep again, but not heavy in the slightest. Ruffled fruit and savoury notes with minerality and real finesse. These wines are like no other from the Roussillon. Outstanding.
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Domaine Danjou-Banessy
Natural, biodynamic and vegan. Grenache, Carignan and Mourvedre from 80 year old vines, Made without filtering or fining. Pale but gorgeous mid red colour. At first on the nose, you are like "What even is that?". Whatever it is, you know that you like it. Elegant, subtle fruit is intermixed with gentle herb, earth and savoury characters. Deep and wonderful. On the palate the wine is elegant and deep again, but not heavy in the slightest. Ruffled fruit and savoury notes with minerality and real finesse. These wines are like no other from the Roussillon. Outstanding.
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Domaine des Trinités
It's here, the 'Coulsh-Rotie". Simon "The Coulsh'" Coulshaw's fabulous take on this iconic wine. "I put this glass of wine to my nose, and had I not been firmly anchored to a chair, would have taken five steps back. The aroma swept me off my feet. Indescribable. Wild. One Thousand and One Nights distilled into a glass. Heady and exotic and riddled with rose petals and spice and coiled with riddles and one sniff of this is poetry and myth and folklore and kitchen table and campfire and someone's cigarette stubbed out at 3 am in lonely finality. Garrigue-spiced aromatics spiral through rock, plant, seed, flower with dazzling complexity. One moment it's rose petals, so delicate you could brush a baby's lips with it; the next it's hot tar, underground angry, rocks shifting deep in the cracks of the earth. This is a velvety, cocoa-dusted, amped-up-then-restrained, dark-horse beauty. Vertical, dark, slub-silk fruit with overtones of tamari and dark chocolate, crushed coffee beans and sweet forest-floor earth. Long and the kind of wine that coils around you slowly, sinuously, sensuously. Worth every penny. You'd pay three times this for a Rhône of this stature". (TC) 18/20 jancisrobinson.com When to drink 2023 - 2035 Published on 29 Nov 2021 Date tasted 29 Nov 2021
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Domaine des Trinités
Made by Simon Coulshaw of the minimal-intervention school. Biodynamic farming although not certified. 100% Roussanne planted on their highest vineyards, a steep north-facing slope in the foothills of the Cévennes mountains. Isolated vineyards surrounded by herbaceous shrub and woodland on schist and basalt boulders. Hand-picked at 20-25 hl/ha, Five days' on skins then 48 hours of cold settling before racking. Spontaneous fermentation, no enzymes, no fining, minimal sulphur and sulphites. Carbon dioxide nap used to avoid oxidation.
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Domaine Danjou-Banessy
Energy is a word used a lot by the finest Roussillon growers. We don't think there has been a finer example than this extraordinary wine from the freres Danjou. The 2020 is more 'Cote-Rotie' than the 'Crozes like' 2018. A thrilling wine.
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Domaine Danjou-Banessy
Energy is a word used a lot by the finest Roussillon growers. We don't think there has been a finer example than this extraordinary wine from the freres Danjou. The 2020 is more 'Cote-Rotie' than the 'Crozes like' 2018. A thrilling wine.
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Domaine Gayda
Soft pink tones and a floral bouquet belie the nuance and subtley of this delicious rosé. Harvested from La Liviniere plantings of Mourvedre, Cinsault and Grenache. Certified Organic and aged on lees for three months. 90/100 Decanter Magazine "Light and softly framed, this wine shows juicy stone fruit with red fruit highlights. The palate has plenty of ripe peach and apricot, fresh cranberry and intense grapefruit pith, with a saline and succulent finish. Mourvèdre, Syrah, Grenache and Cinsault grapes are all sourced from the La Livinière area in the Minervois". Drinking Window 2022 - 2023
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Domaine Gayda
Soft pink tones and a floral bouquet belie the nuance and subtley of this delicious rosé. Harvested from La Liviniere plantings of Mourvedre, Cinsault and Grenache. Certified Organic and aged on lees for three months. 90/100 Decanter Magazine "Light and softly framed, this wine shows juicy stone fruit with red fruit highlights. The palate has plenty of ripe peach and apricot, fresh cranberry and intense grapefruit pith, with a saline and succulent finish. Mourvèdre, Syrah, Grenache and Cinsault grapes are all sourced from the La Livinière area in the Minervois". Drinking Window 2022 - 2023
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Foncalieu
Really tasty. Full colour, but light on it's feet. Lots of staisfaction here. This wine is soft pressed after five hours of skin contact to produce a light pink wine. Fermentation occurs under controlled temperatures in stainless-steel tanks. Five days resting on the lees are followed by two days of cold settling. The vines that produce this wine are grafted from Argentine Malbec, which of course comes originally from Cahors in France. The wine maker is Argentine, and he searched all over the Languedoc for a place that would produce the characteristically bright and intense Malbec of his home country. He found this possibility in partnership with winegrowers from the Coteaux d’Ensérune, who follow a 1,000-year-old viticultural tradition marked by an historically un-French willingness to develop varieties from other horizons. The unique soils on the Montandy plateau outside Béziers are red, chalky and acidic with traces of iron. This combined with the classic Mediterranean climate, make the area an ideal home for Malbec The nose is intense with concentrated red berry aromas mixed with hints of springtime flowers. The expressive palate is bursting with gorgeous, ripe fruit followed by a bright, tangy finish. Pair with Mediterranean cuisine like fish with Provençal sauce and seafood paella or try with grilled chicken and fish. Also delightful as an aperitif.
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Domaine des Trinités
Possibly the last Rosé to be produced at Trinités? The wine has always been produced for the home market, for the restaurants and bars, in all the major cities. But since the market for such in the last few years has dried up/been somewhat difficult, vigneron Simon Coulshaw has decided to take a break for a while. This 2020 is unlike any previous effort, mostly explained below in Tamlyn Currin's note for jancisrobinson.com. It really is truly wonderful Rosé with real minerality, precision and class. an absolute stunner. 40% Cinsault, 40% Grenache Noir, 20% Mourvèdre. Hand-picked, organically and biodynamically farmed grapes. 100% saignée ie no pressing, just bleeding from the tanks. Winemaker Simon Coulshaw points out that the distinct difference in colour between the 2019 and 2020 (the latter being distinctly lighter in colour) is purely down to the maturity of the anthocynanins in the grapes. In 2019 he left the grapes for an hour and the colour was already dark; in 2020 it spent three or four hours and still didn't throw much colour. Bone dry (less than 0.5 g RS). "This is an outstanding rosé. If only Languedoc producers would sit up and take notice – this is what you can do with rosé. Real wine. Real depth, real texture, acidity so full and exciting and ripe that it made me want to helter skelter, go boogie on Brighton Pier, lick seashells dipped in raspberry sherbet, make cherry bombs filled with lime sorbet and eat them sitting fully clothed in the sea with salt on my tongue and fingers and toes. All of which sounds like fun fun fun, but don't be deceived. This is a serious wine, framed in spice and pink-grapefruit-peel bitterness. Very Good Value (TC)". Score 17/20 jancisrobinson.com When to drink 2021 - 2023 Published on 29 Nov 2021 Date tasted 29 Nov 2021
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Fontanassa
A classic Gavi. Straw yellow colour with greenish reflection, aromas of citrus, grapefruit, cut grass, good freshness, persistent and mineral taste with a long lasting finish. "Pronounced flavour intensity, with a creamy, buttery element and some sweet spices, crunchy citrus and stone fruit." Savvas Symeonidis, Goodman Restaurant Mayfair.
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Terres Falmet
"Stellar old vine Carignan that is supple, savoury and deeply gorgeous. Yves Falmet's varietal selections from his extraordinary single bank of vines in Creissan, Saint-Chinian go from strength to strength. Make sure you check them all out". Stewart Travers, Senior Buyer
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Terres Falmet
"Stellar old vine Carignan that is supple, savoury and deeply gorgeous. Yves Falmet's varietal selections from his extraordinary single bank of vines in Creissan, Saint-Chinian go from strength to strength. Make sure you check them all out". Stewart Travers, Senior Buyer
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Domaine des Soulanes
Wonderful new cuvee from the brilliant Daniel and Cathy Laffite based in Tautavel. These guys have some of the most beautiful vineyards we have ever seen, and they are worked with utmost care and respect in an organic way. Glorious Grenache and Carignan deliver so much pleasure with beautiful fruit, great minerality and supple, savoury tannins. DELICIOUS.
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Various
A terrific 3 bottle selection of exceptional wines made by producers that have been rated as the best of the best by wine critics as well as ourselves! Champagne Pierre Bertrand 1er Cru Brut NV Feudo Della Trappola 2021 IGT Toscana Domaine Danjou Bannessy Roboul Rouge 2022 Cotes Catalane Champagne Pierre Bertrand 1er Cru Brut NV £29.99 came first in a Decanter tasting of over 100 Grower Champagnes in June 2018, with a score of 98 and an Exceptional rating. We have been importing it into the UK for 12 years and we always knew it was great, now some of the top wine critics agree with us, unanimously. A premium cuvee made exclusively from the premier cru villages of Cumieres and Hautvillers. These are warm sites, with south-facing vineyard s well-exposed to the sun, and for this cuvee Bertrand blends the three main Champagne grape varieties in equal proportions. It's aged for six years in the cellars before release, which is unusually long for a grower estate, and this long ageing on the lees contributes to the wine's complexity and finesse. Feudo Della Trappola 2020, IGT Toscana, £14.99 95/100 Decanter Magazine (2019 vintage) - Best performing wine in Decanter's Tuscan IGT wines panel tasting Baron Francesco Ricasoli has guided this central Tuscan winery since 1993. Trappola was a feudal hamlet and castle that belonged to the Ricasolis for centuries. Antico Feudo della Trappola blends 60% Sangiovese, 25% Cabernet Sauvignon and 15% Merlot. A modern style, fermented in stainless steel, aged for eight or nine months in second- and third-use tonneaux. Susan Hulme MW: Sweet oak spice, cream, vanilla and white chocolate notes, toast, refined tannins. Beautifully harmonious wine with lovely freshness on the finish. Lovely lightness and freshness on the finish, and not at all heavy-handed. Andrea Briccarello: Clean, but with rustic and earthy notes. Beefy with wild berry fruits, great tannins and lots of blueberry. Charming and well poised. Annette Scarfe MW: Soft, opulent, plummy and ripe. Full-bodied with ripe tannins. Black cherry and red plums. Plush mid-palate. Ideal with spicy cuisine, and duck. Domaine Danjou Bannessy Roboul Rouge 2020 Cotes Catalanes £22.99 18/20 Tamlyn Currin jancisrobinson.com "Single vineyard. 60% Mourvèdre (20 years old), 40% Grenache (30 years old) on pudding stone, clay, sand and limestone tuffeau. Hand-picked; whole-bunch, spontaneous fermentation; minimal cap work; very gently pressed. Fermented separately because the Mourvèdre ripens so much later than the Grenache. 12 months in old oak barrels of 600, 500 and 400 litres. If I’d not known what this wine was, and put it to my nose, my first guess would be Pinot Noir, Tasmania. Rosehips. Nectarine skin. Hibiscus tea. Morels. Then, after tasting it, I’d change my mind. I’d wonder if this was Cinsault, one of Alex Milner’s wraith-like beauties, perhaps: the bruised rose petals, the jasmine tea, the taste of prickly pears and dust and pungent-peppery-green at the back of my throat. Then I smell garrigue - cistus, broom heather, wild thyme, the smell of the wind blowing through holm oaks and twisted pines and I am in the south of France. This is the fey child of Roussillon. This is a wine that dances in the thin places. VGV"