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mourvedre

Mourvèdre 2020
17.5/20 jancisrobinson.com

Full bottle 1,154 g. Certified HVE. Hand-picked grapes from a steep hillside vineyard in St-Chinian. Pesticide-free.

 

His 2020 Mourvèdre is yet another confirmation of his almost wizard-like ability to make a cashmere silky, jewelled-fruit wine out of a grape that I usually find stomps in heftily, wearing a scowl, muddy steel-toe-cap boots and thick dark canvas overalls, smoking a Gauloises, smelling of farmyard and uttering not much in an unintelligible mutter.

This wine smells of jasmine, violet and pomegranate molasses.

Sure, there is a lick of smoke, but it’s folded into deeply sweet dark fruit – blueberry, black fig, blackberry – and a sheath of tissue-paper-and-600-thread-cotton-textured tannins”.

 

Very Very Good Value (Tamlyn Currin)

 

 

carignan2

Carignan 2020


16.5/20 jancisrobinson.com

Full bottle 1,146 g. Certified HVE. Hand-picked grapes. Pesticide free.

 

“Savoury, dark, tamari-umami fruit on the nose. Blackcurrants dipped in kombucha reduction.

Bendy-firm tannins that have the grip and feel of a yoga mat. So much salty savouriness that it almost tastes like Bovril tea with a teaspoon of pomegranate molasses stirred in.

But not thick or heavy at all, despite having the characteristic meatiness and rosemary-stalk ruggedness of Carignan.

Wonderfully peppery towards the mid-point and a fresh breath of pine needles towards the end.

This is a food wine. (TC)

 

RESERVE

Réserve 2020


16.5/20 jancisrobinson.com

Full bottle 1,150 g. Certified HVE. Mourvèdre, Grenache, Syrah and Carignan from steep, pesticide-free vineyards in the south of St-Chinian.

 

“A touch of glacé cherry on the nose, crushed ripe raspberries, fine-crushed wet gravel. Unusually fine tannins – this really plays in the mouth on tiptoes.

Lovely carpaccio layers between the cool red fruit, threaded with rosemary and sansho pepper and sarsaparilla.

A particularly delicate expression of St-Chinian, but that’s not to say it’s insubstantial. If you prefer your reds elegant, this is for you”.

 

Good Value (TC)