A tasting and blending trip to Southern France
As Wine Merchants, the element we of course enjoy the most is getting overseas, visiting wine regions and seeing the places and meeting the people behind the wine. Although the two of us have been in the industry for what must add up to over 50 years collectively, as a father and son team, Liam and I have, as yet, not travelled and explored many of the wine regions together so it was fascinating to travel together and realise just how strong our personal draw is to the fascinating and all-embracing world of wine.
Last week we were in the South of France, a region that interests us both hugely and looking at the levels of sales, apparently our customers too. It is from this area that we source many of our critically important ‘house wines’. The real focus of the visit was not only to search for new exciting wines, maybe try out some of the lesser-known grape varieties but primarily to look at wines that were grown in the summer of 2015.
The Languedoc-Roussillon is located around the basin of the Mediterranean and is the world’s largest wine region, stretching all the way from Nimes in the east to the Spanish border in the west and consists of a multitude of quality appellations and a more generic source of good value Vin de Pays. Regions like Minervois and Corbieres continue to offer outstanding quality reds, shared and innovative winemaking skills ensuring each year the wines seem to get better and better. The salty dry Picpoul de Pinet from vineyards close to Beziers are currently so fashionable, so blending our own Picpoul under the l’Abeille label has been an interesting project and gives us complete control of quality and pricing.
On this trip particular attention was given to the Roussillon, where Liam is making his own wine from predominately 100yr old Carignan vines under a label called Immortelle. With only 100 cases available for the UK market this year, the 2014 has almost sold out, but it was fascinating to look at the components of the 2015 vintage and start to get a look at blending options. Tasting raw wines that are in their infancy ...anticipating how they will develop, the use of oak, and so on, a real eye opener...2015, again a great vintage, watch this space....
In Limoux, the high vineyards that face the Pyrenees create wines that are extraordinarily close to Burgundy in style and quality...and yet often at half the price; both the Pinot Noir and Chardonnay shone out and will certainly be additions to our list this summer.
It is impossible to visit south France without mentioning rosé. Wines that continue to be more and more popular every year, in fact the sale of rosé wines is now counting for 10% of still wine sales. Provence rosé are quite brilliant, and the warm summer of 2015 seems to have been captured in the bright strawberry fruit that characterises this region’s wine in this year.
Southern France, a region that 20 years ago was really only a source of cheap Vin de Table, now seems to be one of the world's most interesting regions. Offering such diversity and value, I cannot overstate our collective passion and interest in the wines from Southern France.
Charles Steevenson
Steevenson Wines