June 15, 2023 • 35 mins
With more than 300 days of sunshine and steady winds off the Mediterranean Sea, Pyrenees Mountains and the Massif Central, the region of Languedoc-Roussillon in southwest France’s “Occitania” has a prolific winemaking heritage. AOC Limoux, for example, is the birthplace of sparkling wine. Melanie and David explore a few of Languedoc’s 20 AOCs and styles of wine produced, including: Picpoul de Pinet, Corbieres- Boutenac, La Clape, Pic Saint Loup, Limoux, Malepere, Saint Chinian and Cabardès.
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The Connected Table is broadcast live Wednesdays at 2PM ET.
The Connected Table Radio Show is broadcast on W4CY Radio (www.w4cy.com) part of Talk 4 Radio (www.talk4radio.com) on the Talk 4 Media Network (www.talk4media.com).
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Radio. Welcome to the Connected TableLive. We're your hosts, Melanie Young
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and David Ransom. You're insatiably curiousculinary couple. We bring you the fascinating
people we meet in fine wine,spirits, hospitality and food around the world,
and we bring their stories to lifehere on this show, which you
can hear on more than thirty fivechannels around the world, including the Biggie's
iHeart, Spotify and Apple Podcast.You're listening live on debb before Say Radio,
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and we are delighted to dedicate thisshow to a region that we recently
visited, Langadoc Rousslon, So we'retaking you to the Southwest Mediterranean area of
France. It's a coastal area nowknown as Osatania. It's also been called
Soudest France and pie doc igp.Its history is rich and deep. The
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winemaking here dates back to one twentyfive BC, and with more than three
hundred days of sunshine and steady windsoff the Mediterranean Sea and the Pyrenees Mountains
plus the massive central this is aclimate suitable for growing many types of grapes,
and so this region does because Langedocitself is the largest producer of organic
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wines, and it is one ofthe largest producers of wines in France period.
It is a very very big wineregion. Landoc or Ruslan are often
discussed together, but as David andI discovered, they're like fraternal twins.
They don't really one is bigger.Landoc Rousselon is very special. Today we're
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going to talk about lung Doc becausewe recently did a show on Rouslon,
and so this is a follow up, right David, Yes, it is
melody. So you know, wementioned that this is an area that grows
many types of grapes. Is sandwichedin between Bordeaux and the southern Rhan in
Provence. So you've got bordovaarridals,and you've got Roan varietals, and you've
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got native varietals. Right. Yeah. In a lot of ways, it's
kind of been referred to as thewild West of France in winemaking because you
can really do a lot of differentthings there, and a lot of people
make wine in these regions Langadoc andRoussillon because it gives them the freedom to
do what they want, because somany places that you can grow grapes and
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so many of the Appellachians in Franceare very strict with their regulations, but
the Langedoc and Russello tend to bea little bit more giving, shall we
say. And while this area hasbeen known for producing bulk wines, we
have discovered that it is emerging asa fine wine region and we were sole
privileged to be able to travel withother journalists to visit Langedoc, Ruslan and
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visit some specific sub appellations. Infact, Langedoc has twenty aocs producing more
than one million hecco. Leaders ofwine in the US is one of the
major markets. The oldest is Claretde Langedoc, established in nineteen forty eight
and the youngest is aoc LA Kloppestablished in twenty fifteen, which we visited.
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Well, we didn't visit every subappellation, but I have to say,
David, between the master classes andthe field trips, we covered a
lot of ground, right we did. We were We did I think four
days of trips through the region andwe just we did cover a lot and
there's a lot to cover, trustme, there's many, many appellations involved
in this region. Summer, oldsummer, new summer, large summer,
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very very small. But we reallygot a good feel of what the longa
Duck wines are about. When whenwe came away from this trip, they
really want to thank the organizers andthe agency clare To Loon that helps set
this up. It was a biggroup and it's always hard to navigate.
Let's discuss some of the highlights.We're going to share some of the master
classes we attended, which dived deepinto a specific area, but we also
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got to do field trips to meetproducers and taste the wines and really get
out and into the vineyards and digour hands into the dirt. One of
the master classes we attended in oneof the first is also a region we
had the chance to visit, thoughbriefly to a producer, but a big
producer comb deparm role in January.It's aoc Pickpool Dupinay. Now David and
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I have both written extensively about thisarea. We love this area for a
variety of reasons. One, it'sexclusively white wine. It was established in
twenty thirteen, and it us ismore than even the pick Pull's also grown
on the Rhone. More than ninetypercent of pickpole production of France comes from
this appellation. Uh. The wineis benefits from what the locals referred to
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and was heavily underscored in the Masterclass MERWOI meets Terois or the Neptune effect.
This refers to coastal influences of theMediterranean Sea that brush up against the
massif Central with all the winds.That result is a very crisp, pi
ascid white wine that we just love. Right and the pick Pull Dpine area
is literally right on the coast ofthe Mediterranean. You can you can toss
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a rock into the Mediterranean Sea fromthe vineyards. It's just it's just right
there. So it's got the coastalinfluence. But then you've got that beautiful
wind coming down out of Carcassan Uhand the into it from the west and
it's just as so it's got thatmountain influence as well. It's a great
one. And you know, webuy our local one for about fourteen dollars,
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so it's great value. The nameis kind of fun. People referred
to it as lip Singer because it'sa lip smacking wine, but that's not
the original name. The original originis because pick pool hens would pick at
the grapes that had fallen to theground, so pick pull I have to
admit lip Stinger though. Yeah,well that's because of that great high acidity.
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There's also pickpull nowarm Pickpoll green thatpeople nowar is part of one of
the permitted grapes and chateau and nutapop but this region is all white and
all amazing and we love this wine. It became part of the AOC Long
Attack in nineteen eighty five. Youcan find it on the market. It's
got a very signature Neptune bottle that'sgreen. They call it the Neptune because
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of the god of the sea.It was actually designed by Albu Glassworks in
Italy. Fun fact and very verypopular in fact, I love this quote
about Pickpool that someone shared with mewhen I was doing my article and Wine
Enthusiasm. It was from Dan stephanof his general manager for Pure Wines and
Spirits and Matters in Wisconsin. Hesaid, Pickpool is a mythical hybrid of
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Pinot Grigio, Shannon Blanc reasoning,and a touch of Savignon block. It's
the utility infielder of the wine worldbecause it can serve so many purposes,
from being a cocktail appertif a perfectmatch for seafood and shellfish, which we
did, or a fun brown bagwine to take you to a weekly tasting
group. If you like wine,wine, you gotta love this wine.
Yes, that's fun. Right whenI was writing my article, I was
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quoted, pickpool is straight pleasure.You just open a glass, open a
bottle of poor glass, and youimmediately want another glass. You sure do,
and you know sometimes that's just reallywhat wine should be about. But
let's move on. So that's people. That was our first masterclass, and
all of the master classes were amazing. I think we'll just take you through
the trip, which may be theeasiest way to do it. So then
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we headed out because every day wasa morning technical tasting and a masterclass and
then a field trip. It's likecamp right, and where we went to
look Clap And don't don't joke aboutthe name La Clap, but that's the
name. It's it's, as wesaid, one of the youngest AOC's established
in twenty fifteen. Uh so let'stalk about La Clap david Um. It's
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west of the city of Narbonns.We're based in our Bonn, which is
kind of a cool city if you'regoing to go in this area. There's
it's on the coast, but lotsof canals. Yeah, it's definitely got
access to the coast and there's canalsand rivers that go through it um and
it's a great little city. Goesback to Roman times. There were Roman
ruins there as well, so it'sobviously there's rich history in this region of
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Lanadoc and in Russillon and really muchreally the whole Mediterranean basin in France.
Yeah. Well, Narbonne was aport for a long time and then it
kind of you know, lost itsrichness, but it's still rich in history
and we love that Lal market.Yeah, it was great, a wonderful
market there. Yeah, So let'stalk about La clap It's west just so,
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it's just west of the city ofNarbonne, a little further south from
Pickpool. It's located in a nationalpark, the Nabernese National Park, which
is kind of cool with a lotof raw natural beauty. What are the
grapes here, because everywhere we wentthe grape varieties changed and bleurns right,
Well, it depends on whether you'retalking about white or red. To be
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honest with you, you know,there's obviously a lot of the GSM style
wines made down in the longer docarea, and so for reds you will
definitely get grenache, Sira and moveDra mostly grenache, but they also grow
reds like Carignan and Saints So,which are a couple of wines that I
like tremendously. When you're talking aboutwhites, that the largest amount are Grenache
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blanc and then also bourblanc, whichis a grape that has grown fairly widely
in the southwest area of France andextends all the way up to places like
Lerac in the room. Yeah,and and the blends varied. In this
case, sixty cent of the sixtypercent of the total blend has to be
BBC Grenache blanc and then there's someMacabeo Villonne and white Terette local thing.
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These were terrific wines. Are wewant to give a shout out to where
we did the meet the producers domainSarat Degaudi. It's a family state led
by Olivia Calex for generation fourth generationvineyer on Um. You can visit this
winery and it has a really nicespace, just a lot of hospitality and
really a wonderful region. I didn'tknow anything about it, so it was
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a great discovery. Right, Yes, very nice region and the Laclap wines
were very nice to drink too,and there were probably about ten producers they're
pouring. That night we have dinnerat the winery and whole bunch of producers
of the air pouring and the wineswere lovely, both reads and whites.
Yeah, really nice. Um.Then we went to Faujire. We actually
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did a show with a producer fromFoxier a couple of maybe last year.
This produced. This region produces white, red and rose, but it's best
known from its reds again Roan varietalsvarieties. Sara Grenashamavedra. We tasted a
number of wines there. That wasa short field trip during the day and
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we had lunch with wine growers andthe vineyards, and then somehow we got
back to the hotel. And wenever really get back to the hotel in
lone of these trips, right,but somehow we got back. Just so
you know, in context, wherea fog is, it's more central and
north. So pick pulls on thecoast, Laclop is south of pick Pull
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on the Mediterranean coast, closer TurnerBond, and then further north and more
inland is aop fogier. Just southof that is a region called Shinian.
We actually did a master class onShinnian. We'll get up our notes and
look at that and give you alittle intel on that. But the internal
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area we found Langnac's interior to bevery mountainous and a lot of varying um
soils throughout. You know, thatmassive central wind really impacts that central area
in a fairly big way. I'mgoing to pull up our notes on Sanctini
and so while we're doing that,we'll just move on to another region we
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visited. How's that uh Lemou?We love Lemou, right, David mu
actually and it's actually the birthplace ofsparkling wine. Did you know that?
Well, I do, did youknow that? Listeners? It's in fact,
the world's for sparking is creating lemo. It's called Lemou method ancestraw.
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We tasted a few with the nativeMozac grape. They were very different from
the other sparkling command Lemou Wine's madein the method the more traditional is the
method ancestral, but then there arealso wines made in the method traditional,
which is a little confusing. Itis confusing, but it is confusing.
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But they did taste quite different,right, Oh yeah, very much.
Yeah. The Mozac grape has itsown personality and there's a little bit of
sweetness in the method ancestral. Wealso went to that really cool Benedictine Abbey
where the actual first couvey was made. Yeah, where they say they actually
found out that wine could sparkle yes, And it was the Benetine Benedictine Abbey
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and the which is where they createdBlankette de Lemus, which is the original
cremal method ancestral. Lovely place andm Lemous. I really actually love the
wines from Lemous. You know,there's a lot of sparkling wine made around
France. Obviously most Champagne is themost well known, but there's a lot
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of other regions where very good sparklingwine is made. And the bonus for
those regions is that they tend tobe a lot more affordable than Champagne is,
oh hugely, So you know,you can get a really good bottle
of Le MoU for for twenty dollarsor less, where you can't get anywhere
near that when you get Champagne.So that was a really great visit and
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just moving along, the same daywe visited Le MoU, we visited aoc
Malapire m a l E p rr e. Actually that name means bad
stones, but they're really good stonesbecause they make the vine struggle and that
interesting. Um. It is reallythe far West. I think we sell
more cows and horses than people.We were kind of in this area where
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people were I guess in the summerthey go camping and they really want to
get away from it all. AndI said to you, we really want
to get away from it. Let'sgo to Malapier. It's amazing. These
are higher elevations, clay and limestonesouls very rocky. Thus the bad stones,
which are really good stones for helpingthe vine struggle, mainly read and
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some rose. So it's so neathell. Everywhere we went the focus changed
right there. Yeah, absolutely,you know. And the maliparas in the
far southwest of the region of Lagadak, close to Roussel actually and way up
in the mountains. It's a beautiful, rugged region. We just it was
a beautiful day. While were there, we just couldn't get enough of the
so visuals. What's interesting is moreBordeaux style reds. You've got mar Low
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must comprise. Okay, Marlow mustcomprise fifty percent of the blend. Totally
different here with Kaeberne Franc, Malbach, Sarah and Grenache making up the rest.
Kaeberney Franc has to comprise up tofifty percent. Also so for the
rose wines. For the rose wines, so Marlow dominant for the reds,
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Kaeberni Franc for the rose's. Thiswas a really cool area and one of
the most unusual things that happened herewas we had an effect to cassolet Now
I had just done We had justdone a show called with Silver Bigar on
her fabulous book Castile Confessions that airednot too many weeks prior to our trip.
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And you know, for those whodon't know Cassile, it's a slow
cook simmering white bean stew, stuffedwith sausage and game and duck and chicken
and different villages. It's it's native. It was born in this region and
the Ode and the southwest France.The Oude is one of the departments of
the southwest France and some of thevillages like claimed fame to have their special
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Cassili. We were honored because agroup of um locals marched out in their
finery. In fact, Michael Pinkuswas like, what's what's going on?
Is there gonna be a circus now? And I was like, oh my
god, it's the Society of Castelnaudre. They're coming out with the Castili.
Why is that important? Because CastelNadre is considered the center and birth of
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Cassili and this this society. Yeah, and they came out in March and
they actually presented one of our journalistswith an award. And we had this
wonderful Cassle evening with these wonderful mountainup here wines. It was so much
fun, right, David, Yes, and the wines were beautiful too.
Oh, I just thought that eveningwas terrific. I love those wines and
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a discovery right um, just soyou know, there is a root to
Cassole you can follow if you goto the region, and we do recommend
really going out west and checking outthese far flowing parts of um of the
Langadoc really terrific. We also didsome master classes. One was on a
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region that we were just visiting whenwe were talking about Foxier, just tucked
below Fojier is the aop sonth schinion. We were a woman named Ann Serrez
led a class. This was likemany parts of Lagadoc and Rousslon, the
ro settled here. They brought someof their oh my making interests and skills.
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It is another rugged area with alot of limestone and shifts and very
windy. In fact, she saidit's possible to have two vintages in the
same harvest due to climate change.Right now, that's kind of crazy,
Yeah, it's kind of crazy.Anyway. This is mainly GSM and caring
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on so roam varieties. We tasteda lot of wines here, but we
didn't get to visit. It's alwaysnice to set this apart for me was
the fact that there was wine thatwas grapes that were growing on shift and
you could really feel that shifty mineralityin the wines. Yeah, shift is
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you know, really favors early ripening. The vines dig deeper, they have
to struggle. I'll never forget Davidwhen I was learning about wine and people
like we have poor soil, andI was like, that's so sad,
but that's so good poor. Youknow, the wine business is only where
you could be poor and struggling.And that's a good thing, right,
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That's a good thing. And oldergrapes grapes level struggle. Yeah, grapes
love of struggle. So this areaalso grew some other like kunois and Taratnuan
marcelon, the kind of other differentvarieties that were kind of not mentioned in
the other. Yeah. The whiteswere Grenache, Blanc, rousselm Marson,
also Vermentina, a little bit ofBarbelanc and a few others too, But
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you know, I thought they werekind of rony and style. It was,
Yeah, it is higher elevation thewine. The white wines were rich
and velvety and just delicious. Thered wines grenachemuvedra, and there was one
grape which I hadn't ever heard ofbefore called light in our Pellou, Yeah,
which was which was a grape thatvery little of it has grown,
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but it's something that you can findthere in Sanchinio. So another discovery.
And as we said, if youget your map out, it's like smack
dab in the center of this area, just north of Aop minervoir, which
is a much larger it's one ofthe larger areas of Langoedoc. We did
not visit it, but we didtaste some mineral ones at the grand tastings.
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Every day there was a grand tasting. This is such a large area
you need multiple days, multiple daysand multiple visits to cover it all.
And I hope we get invited backbecause we didn't even touch like the northern,
really northern parts of the area.One of the master classes did we
save well. One one that wedid was on the newest appellation in the
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Langodoc, which is the aoc PickSaint Loop. Yes, it's a beautiful
places. It's one of the morenortherly actually maybe the most northerly appellation in
the Lagodoc, and it's only thirtykilometers from Montpellier, so it's very far
east as well in your name,and it is also about thirty kilometers from
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the sea, so it gets alot of Mediterranean influence in it. It's
hilly, it's rugged, it's dramatic. The wines are delicious. This soils
are limestone based, so you've gotthat great minerality and some chalkiness in the
wines as well. It's a wetterregion. People usually don't equate the Longer
Doc is being a terribly wet regionbecause it's so dry, especially in the
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summertime when when people there, andyou get three hundred days of sunshine in
the Longer Doc a year, sopeople always say it's just a bright,
sunny place. But there's there issome rain there. It's very hot in
the summer, but that heat coolsdown at night. And there's also a
lot of wind. And you getthe wind from two places. You get
the wind from the Mediterranean and youget the wind from the mountains. See
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really have more of a continental climatehere versus Mediterranean and a lot more diurnal
ship as a result. What Ithought was interesting about this place, it's
I kind of liken it as towhere the Langodoc meets the Rhone. Yeah,
and the dominant grape for reds inthe region is Sira. So the
wines because it's higher elevation, becauseit's further inland, because it's somewhat mountainous
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and rugged. The wines, especiallythe sera, kind of reminded me of
this Sia that comes out of theNorthern Rhone. Absolutely, fifty percent of
the wine must be the blend mustbe sa. All the wines are blended
here. Um and then Grenashiam Movedraand Uh. I thought it was a
really interesting area. They had somerose's. Not every ruin had rose's.
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This is a Sara based rose andtwo other permitted could be used. We
tasted some interesting wines. I thinkit'd be fun to visit this area,
Um when we come back and kindof dig deeper into the center. It'd
be really fascinating, don't you think? Absolutely? Yeah. You know what
I learned is, you know,with all these trips, you can only
take take, you can only taketaste and SIPs, but you can't dig
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deep in too much because there's neverenough time. What else before we we
we're gonna where else did we goin lnga dog. I think we covered
everything. La move jare Boutanac dowe do Boutanac boot Corbia, Oh god,
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that was where we did the bicycles. So this was fun. Um
Corbia is one of the biggest aocsin the Arian. Boutanec's kind of tucked
into it. It's a red wineAppellachian established in two thousand and five in
the interior of the Ode west ofNarbonne. Boutanac is also the name of
a village high elevation vineyards three hundredfifty meters and up with alluvial souls.
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And then we did this. Wehad a choice of doing an escape room
or an electric bike tour through thevineyards. So guess what we picked the
electric bike tore through the vineyards.Well, you can't pay me to go
into an escape room, no never, So we did that and I thought
it was interesting while I managed notto fall off the bike. Was the
different variations and vineyards, soils right, you saw alluvial, you saw um
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garig, you saw gallets. Itwas quite remarkable. I think we went
to like five vineyards, got totake pictures and what was interesting here?
So after that bike ride for twoand a half hours. We got to
go to Chateau du Luke, whichis owned by the fab family. This
is a family that is really entrenchedin lane dock. They actually have five
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estates, Chateau de Luc, ChateauCoulon, Chateau Fabre, Gasperet, Tourreux,
and Grand courtad. They opened theirarms, they opened their ovens,
they grilled a lot of meat forus. We had a good grilled food,
and they opened a lot of wine. It wasn't just their wine.
There were other producers there because thehosted dinner was at their winery. Because
they could they could fit every buddy. So but it was a nice evening,
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and you know, I actually likedthe wines from Karenyon is the dominant
red grape variety there, so theyhave a little bit of a different feel
than the grenache or the sara that'scoming out of a lot of the other
regions where those are the dominant grapes. So I like the fact that they're
kind of focusing on Karen. Karenon, to me, is a delicious grape.
It's very silky and and plush,and it was I think it was
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fun It's like everywhere we went thereseemed to be a dominant red variety that
was different. One was Sara,one was Grenache, one was Karenon.
It made it really kind of afun discovery throughout to learn how and this
is like one region, but againtwenty sub appellations, all with different personalities.
I would love to go back theretoo and see more. And the
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bike ride was fun. I managednot to fall off, so that was
cool. But again, Corbier Boutanacis this red wine Applaian established in two
thousand and five. I think thatwe just covered all of our regions,
right, David, So before wedip just briefly into one little thing we
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want to talk about with We wantto talk about with Rousselon that we touched
on with Eric Aristol and a priorshow, but just probably want to stand
out a bit more and then I'mgonna ask you your impressions. Is back
to Narbonne, just because we werebase there and I think it'd be nice
to give the town a shout outbecause a lot of people think it's great
and you're visiting all these wineries,but where do you base yourself? Right?
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So Narbonne has a really great history. As we said earlier, it's
a former port. They have agreat layoff food market, and it's got
a network of canals, so it'sa very manageable city to walk along canals.
That felt very safe. There's somebeautiful arched bridges, and doing the
research for the show, I learnedthat one of the most famous is called
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Pont des Marshaun, much like thePonte Vecchio in Florence. It is one
of the few and rare bridges wherehouses are built on the archway and shops,
and it is listed as one ofthe world's seven most Amazing Inhabited bridges
in the World Geography site. Ithought that was kind of a fun fact.
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It was very walkable and manageable,and of course there was a great
lay all We say did a funhotel, the Il de Gis Suites.
We had a jacuzzi in our roomwhich we never used, and on site
as a windmill with a very terrificrestaurant. We had a wonderful lunch there,
just with all the journalists sharing differentwines to direct a lot of rose.
The food is very good. Foodwas very good, and I think
it was a very nice, cleansizeable rooms, great place to base if
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you're visiting the Longa Knock area.Right, there's one more seminar that we
forgot to talk, oh gosh,which was the Aop Cabard that's right region,
which is far away near Malapara actually, so it's really one of the
two most furthest west regions and southerlyas well in the Laga Doc. It's
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the newest. It's not the newest, but it's it's a tiny appellation.
There's only a handful of producers thatare making wine there, but I thought
the wines were interesting. Twenty eightproducers actually may make wine there, so
that's how small the region is.It's a pretty high elevation limestone soils.
Again. But here's here's the kicker. The main grape that they grow there
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is Cabernet franc and so I thoughtthat was very interesting. They also grow
grenash and sian rollo, of course, but and there's lots of experimentation going
on again the wild west of France, the Laga Doc, but the fact
that they're focused on cabernet franc astheir main variety was very interesting to me.
They make reds, they make rose'sas well, there are no whites
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currently made in the region, althoughthey're trying to develop some. We'll see.
It's one of the reasons it's doeswell for because it's very hot during
the day again cool at night.That helps with that diurnal shift to really
get great characters in the wines andfreshness in acidity and those wines too.
And Caberney Franc as you know,loves to have loves freshness and acidity,
(29:14):
especially when it gets a little bitcool at night, you get you get
those beauty developed, those beautiful flavorsin Caberney franc It's a tiny region,
only four hundred and fifty hectares areplanted, not very much, although they
have a potential to produce about fifteenhundred hectares of fruit, and young winemakers
are kind of moving there to laytheir steak. Yeah, exactly. It's
(29:37):
a it's a region that I reallythought was has a lot of fun and
they're they're kind of positioning themselves tobe the next petite crew of the Laga
Daughter. Right. So it's oneof the smallest aocs in France and a
fun little discovery. Lovely, lovelywines coming out of that region. As
well. Yeah, yeah, soyou know again wild West. All of
Laga Ducks seems to be the wildWest. Everybody, they're in the wild
(30:00):
West, but some were more wilderand wester than others, I have to
say, and I think you know, in summary, the great discovery was
the different personalities of each appellation andhow good the wines were, and how
a little bit we actually have beenable to find here in the United States,
(30:22):
even though the United States is amajor export market, and I think
the opportunity is to really promote theseappellations more, to bring him to the
forefront and distinguish them because they allhave a uniqueness. You cannot you absolutely
cannot lump Longadoc wines into one descriptorNo, you can't. Yeah, it's
(30:47):
two bigger region and it's two varieda region I think to talk about diversity
really amazing. There were other areaswe did not visit this trip, like
Fee two um And, which issupposedly a wonderful wine region. And there
was another one I was looking for, Menivoir, also very large or also
(31:12):
larger in it, but I thinkwe were pretty lucky. We covered a
lot. And then further north there'sa lot of smaller ones as well.
But I think I think we didpretty good for our first foray into landak
right, David, Oh, absolutelyyeah. And um, you know,
again most people know this area forreds, but there's some amazing whites and
(31:38):
a small amount of rose's, butreally terrific discoveries in all, and again
Mediterranean influence but also continental influence offurther inland and north you go, so
very a lot of variances there aswell. In fact, and again don't
(32:00):
forget the sparkling the Cremontant from themove. Those are so good and Pickpool
and the move alone account for seventysix percent of the white produce, So
get in there and get some.But what you need to realize also is
that fifty nine percent of all thewine made in Langodoc is a red.
(32:22):
So there's still less white made thanred. Lots of great whites, but
there's a lot more red made there. I think they're trying to move that
up a little bit right into butyou know, and it's a growing region.
You know, the Langodoc is isa place where you can still find
land affordably in regions to start andmake wine. So over the last ten
(32:45):
years. It's actually growing seventy percent. It's a huge growth. Yeah,
it's it's it's huge, and Ithink there's even more potential. And there's
some there's some big producers that havegone down there to make wine from other
regions as well. Chapo is there, ye, Brand is there. Oh.
Huge, and he's actually from there, yeah, and has done has
(33:06):
basically made it his life's mission tobring attention to the wines of the Longadoc
region. We tasted some of hiswines of malapair and they were terrific,
delicious, they were absolutely terrific.I'm really really wonderful. So we just
you know again, it's known asOsatani. When you go to France,
(33:27):
they referred to it led. Weactually has a really good caveaart from Osatani
by the way, when we wereat Leucock Carton and I had to look
up Astani to figure out where itwas. And then when we went to
Longadok Russel and I'm like, wow, this is the same area. So
a lot of food discoveries as well, because you've got the coast with fish,
you've got the interior, you've gotgreat meat. We ate very well
there and everything was delicious. I'dsay, in all their both wonderful regions
(33:52):
to discover each is unique, eachhas cities that are unique to them,
and it's worth a trip fairly easyto get to. You know, what
we learned is you could probably flyto Barcelona and then hop up easier and
drive up as much as flying toParis and taking the five hour trailing train
(34:13):
down or fly into mark Pelier.Right, yeah, yeah, So again
we want to thank the people whoinvited us, who arranged our travel.
We want to thank the organizations VonDelangedoc and Claire to Loon for a well
organized and very informative trip. Wehope this show is informative for you.
(34:35):
Seek out the wines and your localretailer, give it a try and plan
a trip. Right yep, absolutely, and we will continue to report from
the roads as we travel through.We got a lot of great stuff coming
up in the next few weeks,so we hope you'll tune in. Absolutely,
and as we sign out our messagesalways say and say she'll be curious.
(34:59):
Thank you, mother, mother,mother, mother, Mo Mo Mo Mo
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comments should be directed to those showhosts. Thank you for choosing W FORCY
(00:22):
Radio. Welcome to the Connected TableLive. We're your hosts, Melanie Young
(00:43):
and David Ransom. You're insatiably curiousculinary couple. We bring you the fascinating
people we meet in fine wine,spirits, hospitality and food around the world,
and we bring their stories to lifehere on this show, which you
can hear on more than thirty fivechannels around the world, including the Biggie's
iHeart, Spotify and Apple Podcast.You're listening live on debb before Say Radio,
(01:07):
and we are delighted to dedicate thisshow to a region that we recently
visited, Langadoc Rousslon, So we'retaking you to the Southwest Mediterranean area of
France. It's a coastal area nowknown as Osatania. It's also been called
Soudest France and pie doc igp.Its history is rich and deep. The
(01:30):
winemaking here dates back to one twentyfive BC, and with more than three
hundred days of sunshine and steady windsoff the Mediterranean Sea and the Pyrenees Mountains
plus the massive central this is aclimate suitable for growing many types of grapes,
and so this region does because Langedocitself is the largest producer of organic
(01:52):
wines, and it is one ofthe largest producers of wines in France period.
It is a very very big wineregion. Landoc or Ruslan are often
discussed together, but as David andI discovered, they're like fraternal twins.
They don't really one is bigger.Landoc Rousselon is very special. Today we're
(02:13):
going to talk about lung Doc becausewe recently did a show on Rouslon,
and so this is a follow up, right David, Yes, it is
melody. So you know, wementioned that this is an area that grows
many types of grapes. Is sandwichedin between Bordeaux and the southern Rhan in
Provence. So you've got bordovaarridals,and you've got Roan varietals, and you've
(02:37):
got native varietals. Right. Yeah. In a lot of ways, it's
kind of been referred to as thewild West of France in winemaking because you
can really do a lot of differentthings there, and a lot of people
make wine in these regions Langadoc andRoussillon because it gives them the freedom to
do what they want, because somany places that you can grow grapes and
(02:57):
so many of the Appellachians in Franceare very strict with their regulations, but
the Langedoc and Russello tend to bea little bit more giving, shall we
say. And while this area hasbeen known for producing bulk wines, we
have discovered that it is emerging asa fine wine region and we were sole
privileged to be able to travel withother journalists to visit Langedoc, Ruslan and
(03:20):
visit some specific sub appellations. Infact, Langedoc has twenty aocs producing more
than one million hecco. Leaders ofwine in the US is one of the
major markets. The oldest is Claretde Langedoc, established in nineteen forty eight
and the youngest is aoc LA Kloppestablished in twenty fifteen, which we visited.
(03:42):
Well, we didn't visit every subappellation, but I have to say,
David, between the master classes andthe field trips, we covered a
lot of ground, right we did. We were We did I think four
days of trips through the region andwe just we did cover a lot and
there's a lot to cover, trustme, there's many, many appellations involved
in this region. Summer, oldsummer, new summer, large summer,
(04:03):
very very small. But we reallygot a good feel of what the longa
Duck wines are about. When whenwe came away from this trip, they
really want to thank the organizers andthe agency clare To Loon that helps set
this up. It was a biggroup and it's always hard to navigate.
Let's discuss some of the highlights.We're going to share some of the master
classes we attended, which dived deepinto a specific area, but we also
(04:26):
got to do field trips to meetproducers and taste the wines and really get
out and into the vineyards and digour hands into the dirt. One of
the master classes we attended in oneof the first is also a region we
had the chance to visit, thoughbriefly to a producer, but a big
producer comb deparm role in January.It's aoc Pickpool Dupinay. Now David and
(04:48):
I have both written extensively about thisarea. We love this area for a
variety of reasons. One, it'sexclusively white wine. It was established in
twenty thirteen, and it us ismore than even the pick Pull's also grown
on the Rhone. More than ninetypercent of pickpole production of France comes from
this appellation. Uh. The wineis benefits from what the locals referred to
(05:13):
and was heavily underscored in the Masterclass MERWOI meets Terois or the Neptune effect.
This refers to coastal influences of theMediterranean Sea that brush up against the
massif Central with all the winds.That result is a very crisp, pi
ascid white wine that we just love. Right and the pick Pull Dpine area
is literally right on the coast ofthe Mediterranean. You can you can toss
(05:35):
a rock into the Mediterranean Sea fromthe vineyards. It's just it's just right
there. So it's got the coastalinfluence. But then you've got that beautiful
wind coming down out of Carcassan Uhand the into it from the west and
it's just as so it's got thatmountain influence as well. It's a great
one. And you know, webuy our local one for about fourteen dollars,
(05:56):
so it's great value. The nameis kind of fun. People referred
to it as lip Singer because it'sa lip smacking wine, but that's not
the original name. The original originis because pick pool hens would pick at
the grapes that had fallen to theground, so pick pull I have to
admit lip Stinger though. Yeah,well that's because of that great high acidity.
(06:18):
There's also pickpull nowarm Pickpoll green thatpeople nowar is part of one of
the permitted grapes and chateau and nutapop but this region is all white and
all amazing and we love this wine. It became part of the AOC Long
Attack in nineteen eighty five. Youcan find it on the market. It's
got a very signature Neptune bottle that'sgreen. They call it the Neptune because
(06:40):
of the god of the sea.It was actually designed by Albu Glassworks in
Italy. Fun fact and very verypopular in fact, I love this quote
about Pickpool that someone shared with mewhen I was doing my article and Wine
Enthusiasm. It was from Dan stephanof his general manager for Pure Wines and
Spirits and Matters in Wisconsin. Hesaid, Pickpool is a mythical hybrid of
(07:01):
Pinot Grigio, Shannon Blanc reasoning,and a touch of Savignon block. It's
the utility infielder of the wine worldbecause it can serve so many purposes,
from being a cocktail appertif a perfectmatch for seafood and shellfish, which we
did, or a fun brown bagwine to take you to a weekly tasting
group. If you like wine,wine, you gotta love this wine.
Yes, that's fun. Right whenI was writing my article, I was
(07:25):
quoted, pickpool is straight pleasure.You just open a glass, open a
bottle of poor glass, and youimmediately want another glass. You sure do,
and you know sometimes that's just reallywhat wine should be about. But
let's move on. So that's people. That was our first masterclass, and
all of the master classes were amazing. I think we'll just take you through
the trip, which may be theeasiest way to do it. So then
(07:46):
we headed out because every day wasa morning technical tasting and a masterclass and
then a field trip. It's likecamp right, and where we went to
look Clap And don't don't joke aboutthe name La Clap, but that's the
name. It's it's, as wesaid, one of the youngest AOC's established
in twenty fifteen. Uh so let'stalk about La Clap david Um. It's
(08:13):
west of the city of Narbonns.We're based in our Bonn, which is
kind of a cool city if you'regoing to go in this area. There's
it's on the coast, but lotsof canals. Yeah, it's definitely got
access to the coast and there's canalsand rivers that go through it um and
it's a great little city. Goesback to Roman times. There were Roman
ruins there as well, so it'sobviously there's rich history in this region of
(08:37):
Lanadoc and in Russillon and really muchreally the whole Mediterranean basin in France.
Yeah. Well, Narbonne was aport for a long time and then it
kind of you know, lost itsrichness, but it's still rich in history
and we love that Lal market.Yeah, it was great, a wonderful
market there. Yeah, So let'stalk about La clap It's west just so,
(09:00):
it's just west of the city ofNarbonne, a little further south from
Pickpool. It's located in a nationalpark, the Nabernese National Park, which
is kind of cool with a lotof raw natural beauty. What are the
grapes here, because everywhere we wentthe grape varieties changed and bleurns right,
Well, it depends on whether you'retalking about white or red. To be
(09:22):
honest with you, you know,there's obviously a lot of the GSM style
wines made down in the longer docarea, and so for reds you will
definitely get grenache, Sira and moveDra mostly grenache, but they also grow
reds like Carignan and Saints So,which are a couple of wines that I
like tremendously. When you're talking aboutwhites, that the largest amount are Grenache
(09:46):
blanc and then also bourblanc, whichis a grape that has grown fairly widely
in the southwest area of France andextends all the way up to places like
Lerac in the room. Yeah,and and the blends varied. In this
case, sixty cent of the sixtypercent of the total blend has to be
BBC Grenache blanc and then there's someMacabeo Villonne and white Terette local thing.
(10:11):
These were terrific wines. Are wewant to give a shout out to where
we did the meet the producers domainSarat Degaudi. It's a family state led
by Olivia Calex for generation fourth generationvineyer on Um. You can visit this
winery and it has a really nicespace, just a lot of hospitality and
really a wonderful region. I didn'tknow anything about it, so it was
(10:33):
a great discovery. Right, Yes, very nice region and the Laclap wines
were very nice to drink too,and there were probably about ten producers they're
pouring. That night we have dinnerat the winery and whole bunch of producers
of the air pouring and the wineswere lovely, both reads and whites.
Yeah, really nice. Um.Then we went to Faujire. We actually
(10:56):
did a show with a producer fromFoxier a couple of maybe last year.
This produced. This region produces white, red and rose, but it's best
known from its reds again Roan varietalsvarieties. Sara Grenashamavedra. We tasted a
number of wines there. That wasa short field trip during the day and
(11:18):
we had lunch with wine growers andthe vineyards, and then somehow we got
back to the hotel. And wenever really get back to the hotel in
lone of these trips, right,but somehow we got back. Just so
you know, in context, wherea fog is, it's more central and
north. So pick pulls on thecoast, Laclop is south of pick Pull
(11:39):
on the Mediterranean coast, closer TurnerBond, and then further north and more
inland is aop fogier. Just southof that is a region called Shinian.
We actually did a master class onShinnian. We'll get up our notes and
look at that and give you alittle intel on that. But the internal
(12:03):
area we found Langnac's interior to bevery mountainous and a lot of varying um
soils throughout. You know, thatmassive central wind really impacts that central area
in a fairly big way. I'mgoing to pull up our notes on Sanctini
and so while we're doing that,we'll just move on to another region we
(12:26):
visited. How's that uh Lemou?We love Lemou, right, David mu
actually and it's actually the birthplace ofsparkling wine. Did you know that?
Well, I do, did youknow that? Listeners? It's in fact,
the world's for sparking is creating lemo. It's called Lemou method ancestraw.
(12:50):
We tasted a few with the nativeMozac grape. They were very different from
the other sparkling command Lemou Wine's madein the method the more traditional is the
method ancestral, but then there arealso wines made in the method traditional,
which is a little confusing. Itis confusing, but it is confusing.
(13:11):
But they did taste quite different,right, Oh yeah, very much.
Yeah. The Mozac grape has itsown personality and there's a little bit of
sweetness in the method ancestral. Wealso went to that really cool Benedictine Abbey
where the actual first couvey was made. Yeah, where they say they actually
found out that wine could sparkle yes, And it was the Benetine Benedictine Abbey
(13:33):
and the which is where they createdBlankette de Lemus, which is the original
cremal method ancestral. Lovely place andm Lemous. I really actually love the
wines from Lemous. You know,there's a lot of sparkling wine made around
France. Obviously most Champagne is themost well known, but there's a lot
(13:54):
of other regions where very good sparklingwine is made. And the bonus for
those regions is that they tend tobe a lot more affordable than Champagne is,
oh hugely, So you know,you can get a really good bottle
of Le MoU for for twenty dollarsor less, where you can't get anywhere
near that when you get Champagne.So that was a really great visit and
(14:16):
just moving along, the same daywe visited Le MoU, we visited aoc
Malapire m a l E p rr e. Actually that name means bad
stones, but they're really good stonesbecause they make the vine struggle and that
interesting. Um. It is reallythe far West. I think we sell
more cows and horses than people.We were kind of in this area where
(14:39):
people were I guess in the summerthey go camping and they really want to
get away from it all. AndI said to you, we really want
to get away from it. Let'sgo to Malapier. It's amazing. These
are higher elevations, clay and limestonesouls very rocky. Thus the bad stones,
which are really good stones for helpingthe vine struggle, mainly read and
(15:01):
some rose. So it's so neathell. Everywhere we went the focus changed
right there. Yeah, absolutely,you know. And the maliparas in the
far southwest of the region of Lagadak, close to Roussel actually and way up
in the mountains. It's a beautiful, rugged region. We just it was
a beautiful day. While were there, we just couldn't get enough of the
so visuals. What's interesting is moreBordeaux style reds. You've got mar Low
(15:26):
must comprise. Okay, Marlow mustcomprise fifty percent of the blend. Totally
different here with Kaeberne Franc, Malbach, Sarah and Grenache making up the rest.
Kaeberney Franc has to comprise up tofifty percent. Also so for the
rose wines. For the rose wines, so Marlow dominant for the reds,
(15:46):
Kaeberni Franc for the rose's. Thiswas a really cool area and one of
the most unusual things that happened herewas we had an effect to cassolet Now
I had just done We had justdone a show called with Silver Bigar on
her fabulous book Castile Confessions that airednot too many weeks prior to our trip.
(16:06):
And you know, for those whodon't know Cassile, it's a slow
cook simmering white bean stew, stuffedwith sausage and game and duck and chicken
and different villages. It's it's native. It was born in this region and
the Ode and the southwest France.The Oude is one of the departments of
the southwest France and some of thevillages like claimed fame to have their special
(16:30):
Cassili. We were honored because agroup of um locals marched out in their
finery. In fact, Michael Pinkuswas like, what's what's going on?
Is there gonna be a circus now? And I was like, oh my
god, it's the Society of Castelnaudre. They're coming out with the Castili.
Why is that important? Because CastelNadre is considered the center and birth of
(16:53):
Cassili and this this society. Yeah, and they came out in March and
they actually presented one of our journalistswith an award. And we had this
wonderful Cassle evening with these wonderful mountainup here wines. It was so much
fun, right, David, Yes, and the wines were beautiful too.
Oh, I just thought that eveningwas terrific. I love those wines and
(17:17):
a discovery right um, just soyou know, there is a root to
Cassole you can follow if you goto the region, and we do recommend
really going out west and checking outthese far flowing parts of um of the
Langadoc really terrific. We also didsome master classes. One was on a
(17:41):
region that we were just visiting whenwe were talking about Foxier, just tucked
below Fojier is the aop sonth schinion. We were a woman named Ann Serrez
led a class. This was likemany parts of Lagadoc and Rousslon, the
ro settled here. They brought someof their oh my making interests and skills.
(18:04):
It is another rugged area with alot of limestone and shifts and very
windy. In fact, she saidit's possible to have two vintages in the
same harvest due to climate change.Right now, that's kind of crazy,
Yeah, it's kind of crazy.Anyway. This is mainly GSM and caring
(18:25):
on so roam varieties. We tasteda lot of wines here, but we
didn't get to visit. It's alwaysnice to set this apart for me was
the fact that there was wine thatwas grapes that were growing on shift and
you could really feel that shifty mineralityin the wines. Yeah, shift is
(18:45):
you know, really favors early ripening. The vines dig deeper, they have
to struggle. I'll never forget Davidwhen I was learning about wine and people
like we have poor soil, andI was like, that's so sad,
but that's so good poor. Youknow, the wine business is only where
you could be poor and struggling.And that's a good thing, right,
(19:07):
That's a good thing. And oldergrapes grapes level struggle. Yeah, grapes
love of struggle. So this areaalso grew some other like kunois and Taratnuan
marcelon, the kind of other differentvarieties that were kind of not mentioned in
the other. Yeah. The whiteswere Grenache, Blanc, rousselm Marson,
also Vermentina, a little bit ofBarbelanc and a few others too, But
(19:30):
you know, I thought they werekind of rony and style. It was,
Yeah, it is higher elevation thewine. The white wines were rich
and velvety and just delicious. Thered wines grenachemuvedra, and there was one
grape which I hadn't ever heard ofbefore called light in our Pellou, Yeah,
which was which was a grape thatvery little of it has grown,
(19:55):
but it's something that you can findthere in Sanchinio. So another discovery.
And as we said, if youget your map out, it's like smack
dab in the center of this area, just north of Aop minervoir, which
is a much larger it's one ofthe larger areas of Langoedoc. We did
not visit it, but we didtaste some mineral ones at the grand tastings.
(20:18):
Every day there was a grand tasting. This is such a large area
you need multiple days, multiple daysand multiple visits to cover it all.
And I hope we get invited backbecause we didn't even touch like the northern,
really northern parts of the area.One of the master classes did we
save well. One one that wedid was on the newest appellation in the
(20:45):
Langodoc, which is the aoc PickSaint Loop. Yes, it's a beautiful
places. It's one of the morenortherly actually maybe the most northerly appellation in
the Lagodoc, and it's only thirtykilometers from Montpellier, so it's very far
east as well in your name,and it is also about thirty kilometers from
(21:06):
the sea, so it gets alot of Mediterranean influence in it. It's
hilly, it's rugged, it's dramatic. The wines are delicious. This soils
are limestone based, so you've gotthat great minerality and some chalkiness in the
wines as well. It's a wetterregion. People usually don't equate the Longer
Doc is being a terribly wet regionbecause it's so dry, especially in the
(21:30):
summertime when when people there, andyou get three hundred days of sunshine in
the Longer Doc a year, sopeople always say it's just a bright,
sunny place. But there's there issome rain there. It's very hot in
the summer, but that heat coolsdown at night. And there's also a
lot of wind. And you getthe wind from two places. You get
the wind from the Mediterranean and youget the wind from the mountains. See
(21:52):
really have more of a continental climatehere versus Mediterranean and a lot more diurnal
ship as a result. What Ithought was interesting about this place, it's
I kind of liken it as towhere the Langodoc meets the Rhone. Yeah,
and the dominant grape for reds inthe region is Sira. So the
wines because it's higher elevation, becauseit's further inland, because it's somewhat mountainous
(22:18):
and rugged. The wines, especiallythe sera, kind of reminded me of
this Sia that comes out of theNorthern Rhone. Absolutely, fifty percent of
the wine must be the blend mustbe sa. All the wines are blended
here. Um and then Grenashiam Movedraand Uh. I thought it was a
really interesting area. They had somerose's. Not every ruin had rose's.
(22:40):
This is a Sara based rose andtwo other permitted could be used. We
tasted some interesting wines. I thinkit'd be fun to visit this area,
Um when we come back and kindof dig deeper into the center. It'd
be really fascinating, don't you think? Absolutely? Yeah. You know what
I learned is, you know,with all these trips, you can only
take take, you can only taketaste and SIPs, but you can't dig
(23:03):
deep in too much because there's neverenough time. What else before we we
we're gonna where else did we goin lnga dog. I think we covered
everything. La move jare Boutanac dowe do Boutanac boot Corbia, Oh god,
(23:26):
that was where we did the bicycles. So this was fun. Um
Corbia is one of the biggest aocsin the Arian. Boutanec's kind of tucked
into it. It's a red wineAppellachian established in two thousand and five in
the interior of the Ode west ofNarbonne. Boutanac is also the name of
a village high elevation vineyards three hundredfifty meters and up with alluvial souls.
(23:51):
And then we did this. Wehad a choice of doing an escape room
or an electric bike tour through thevineyards. So guess what we picked the
electric bike tore through the vineyards.Well, you can't pay me to go
into an escape room, no never, So we did that and I thought
it was interesting while I managed notto fall off the bike. Was the
different variations and vineyards, soils right, you saw alluvial, you saw um
(24:15):
garig, you saw gallets. Itwas quite remarkable. I think we went
to like five vineyards, got totake pictures and what was interesting here?
So after that bike ride for twoand a half hours. We got to
go to Chateau du Luke, whichis owned by the fab family. This
is a family that is really entrenchedin lane dock. They actually have five
(24:37):
estates, Chateau de Luc, ChateauCoulon, Chateau Fabre, Gasperet, Tourreux,
and Grand courtad. They opened theirarms, they opened their ovens,
they grilled a lot of meat forus. We had a good grilled food,
and they opened a lot of wine. It wasn't just their wine.
There were other producers there because thehosted dinner was at their winery. Because
they could they could fit every buddy. So but it was a nice evening,
(25:02):
and you know, I actually likedthe wines from Karenyon is the dominant
red grape variety there, so theyhave a little bit of a different feel
than the grenache or the sara that'scoming out of a lot of the other
regions where those are the dominant grapes. So I like the fact that they're
kind of focusing on Karen. Karenon, to me, is a delicious grape.
It's very silky and and plush,and it was I think it was
(25:26):
fun It's like everywhere we went thereseemed to be a dominant red variety that
was different. One was Sara,one was Grenache, one was Karenon.
It made it really kind of afun discovery throughout to learn how and this
is like one region, but againtwenty sub appellations, all with different personalities.
I would love to go back theretoo and see more. And the
(25:49):
bike ride was fun. I managednot to fall off, so that was
cool. But again, Corbier Boutanacis this red wine Applaian established in two
thousand and five. I think thatwe just covered all of our regions,
right, David, So before wedip just briefly into one little thing we
(26:14):
want to talk about with We wantto talk about with Rousselon that we touched
on with Eric Aristol and a priorshow, but just probably want to stand
out a bit more and then I'mgonna ask you your impressions. Is back
to Narbonne, just because we werebase there and I think it'd be nice
to give the town a shout outbecause a lot of people think it's great
and you're visiting all these wineries,but where do you base yourself? Right?
(26:37):
So Narbonne has a really great history. As we said earlier, it's
a former port. They have agreat layoff food market, and it's got
a network of canals, so it'sa very manageable city to walk along canals.
That felt very safe. There's somebeautiful arched bridges, and doing the
research for the show, I learnedthat one of the most famous is called
(27:00):
Pont des Marshaun, much like thePonte Vecchio in Florence. It is one
of the few and rare bridges wherehouses are built on the archway and shops,
and it is listed as one ofthe world's seven most Amazing Inhabited bridges
in the World Geography site. Ithought that was kind of a fun fact.
(27:22):
It was very walkable and manageable,and of course there was a great
lay all We say did a funhotel, the Il de Gis Suites.
We had a jacuzzi in our roomwhich we never used, and on site
as a windmill with a very terrificrestaurant. We had a wonderful lunch there,
just with all the journalists sharing differentwines to direct a lot of rose.
The food is very good. Foodwas very good, and I think
it was a very nice, cleansizeable rooms, great place to base if
(27:45):
you're visiting the Longa Knock area.Right, there's one more seminar that we
forgot to talk, oh gosh,which was the Aop Cabard that's right region,
which is far away near Malapara actually, so it's really one of the
two most furthest west regions and southerlyas well in the Laga Doc. It's
(28:10):
the newest. It's not the newest, but it's it's a tiny appellation.
There's only a handful of producers thatare making wine there, but I thought
the wines were interesting. Twenty eightproducers actually may make wine there, so
that's how small the region is.It's a pretty high elevation limestone soils.
Again. But here's here's the kicker. The main grape that they grow there
(28:30):
is Cabernet franc and so I thoughtthat was very interesting. They also grow
grenash and sian rollo, of course, but and there's lots of experimentation going
on again the wild west of France, the Laga Doc, but the fact
that they're focused on cabernet franc astheir main variety was very interesting to me.
They make reds, they make rose'sas well, there are no whites
(28:52):
currently made in the region, althoughthey're trying to develop some. We'll see.
It's one of the reasons it's doeswell for because it's very hot during
the day again cool at night.That helps with that diurnal shift to really
get great characters in the wines andfreshness in acidity and those wines too.
And Caberney Franc as you know,loves to have loves freshness and acidity,
(29:14):
especially when it gets a little bitcool at night, you get you get
those beauty developed, those beautiful flavorsin Caberney franc It's a tiny region,
only four hundred and fifty hectares areplanted, not very much, although they
have a potential to produce about fifteenhundred hectares of fruit, and young winemakers
are kind of moving there to laytheir steak. Yeah, exactly. It's
(29:37):
a it's a region that I reallythought was has a lot of fun and
they're they're kind of positioning themselves tobe the next petite crew of the Laga
Daughter. Right. So it's oneof the smallest aocs in France and a
fun little discovery. Lovely, lovelywines coming out of that region. As
well. Yeah, yeah, soyou know again wild West. All of
Laga Ducks seems to be the wildWest. Everybody, they're in the wild
(30:00):
West, but some were more wilderand wester than others, I have to
say, and I think you know, in summary, the great discovery was
the different personalities of each appellation andhow good the wines were, and how
a little bit we actually have beenable to find here in the United States,
(30:22):
even though the United States is amajor export market, and I think
the opportunity is to really promote theseappellations more, to bring him to the
forefront and distinguish them because they allhave a uniqueness. You cannot you absolutely
cannot lump Longadoc wines into one descriptorNo, you can't. Yeah, it's
(30:47):
two bigger region and it's two varieda region I think to talk about diversity
really amazing. There were other areaswe did not visit this trip, like
Fee two um And, which issupposedly a wonderful wine region. And there
was another one I was looking for, Menivoir, also very large or also
(31:12):
larger in it, but I thinkwe were pretty lucky. We covered a
lot. And then further north there'sa lot of smaller ones as well.
But I think I think we didpretty good for our first foray into landak
right, David, Oh, absolutelyyeah. And um, you know,
again most people know this area forreds, but there's some amazing whites and
(31:38):
a small amount of rose's, butreally terrific discoveries in all, and again
Mediterranean influence but also continental influence offurther inland and north you go, so
very a lot of variances there aswell. In fact, and again don't
(32:00):
forget the sparkling the Cremontant from themove. Those are so good and Pickpool
and the move alone account for seventysix percent of the white produce, So
get in there and get some.But what you need to realize also is
that fifty nine percent of all thewine made in Langodoc is a red.
(32:22):
So there's still less white made thanred. Lots of great whites, but
there's a lot more red made there. I think they're trying to move that
up a little bit right into butyou know, and it's a growing region.
You know, the Langodoc is isa place where you can still find
land affordably in regions to start andmake wine. So over the last ten
(32:45):
years. It's actually growing seventy percent. It's a huge growth. Yeah,
it's it's it's huge, and Ithink there's even more potential. And there's
some there's some big producers that havegone down there to make wine from other
regions as well. Chapo is there, ye, Brand is there. Oh.
Huge, and he's actually from there, yeah, and has done has
(33:06):
basically made it his life's mission tobring attention to the wines of the Longadoc
region. We tasted some of hiswines of malapair and they were terrific,
delicious, they were absolutely terrific.I'm really really wonderful. So we just
you know again, it's known asOsatani. When you go to France,
(33:27):
they referred to it led. Weactually has a really good caveaart from Osatani
by the way, when we wereat Leucock Carton and I had to look
up Astani to figure out where itwas. And then when we went to
Longadok Russel and I'm like, wow, this is the same area. So
a lot of food discoveries as well, because you've got the coast with fish,
you've got the interior, you've gotgreat meat. We ate very well
there and everything was delicious. I'dsay, in all their both wonderful regions
(33:52):
to discover each is unique, eachhas cities that are unique to them,
and it's worth a trip fairly easyto get to. You know, what
we learned is you could probably flyto Barcelona and then hop up easier and
drive up as much as flying toParis and taking the five hour trailing train
(34:13):
down or fly into mark Pelier.Right, yeah, yeah, So again
we want to thank the people whoinvited us, who arranged our travel.
We want to thank the organizations VonDelangedoc and Claire to Loon for a well
organized and very informative trip. Wehope this show is informative for you.
(34:35):
Seek out the wines and your localretailer, give it a try and plan
a trip. Right yep, absolutely, and we will continue to report from
the roads as we travel through.We got a lot of great stuff coming
up in the next few weeks,so we hope you'll tune in. Absolutely,
and as we sign out our messagesalways say and say she'll be curious.
(34:59):
Thank you, mother, mother,mother, mother, Mo Mo Mo Mo
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