Cracking Carignan

I picked up a bottle of Mont Rocher Carignan last week from Edinburgh Wine Merchants. It's a Vin de Pays De L'Herault from the increasingly hilly region of the Languedoc north-west of Montpellier.

Marketed as an old-vine wine, but made with grapes from a collection of different vineyards, I don't doubt that some of the vines are very old but probably not all of them. Not that this is a great problem. The balance of old and young vines is probably a major factor in the beauty of this wine, resisting the classic flaw of Carignan of being cheek-suckingly tannic. Instead, what you get is a velvety mouth-feel, drawn out into a plum fruit and delicate spice finish. The wine is eye-catchingly crimson and while light on the nose, not bland.

Mont Rocher
Carignan
£6.99
EWM

9/10 in it's price bracket