Good Wine from Small Parcels.
With a little help from Team Bassac.
Bassac Little Parcel Faugères (AOP) 2019, 14% ABV,
A wine new to Mary Pawle list, expect to pay €20 to 21.
Contact: Mary Pawle Wines
In the Rhone Valley appellation, winemakers are allowed the use of over twenty grapes. In red wines, the three most often combined are Grenache, Syrah and Mourvedre, so much so that GSM has become shorthand for such wines. Our red here is a GSM but this comes not from the Rhone but from the Faugère appellation within the Languedoc region.
The colour is a deep red. There are complex aromas of cherry and blackberry, a hint of the garrigue too. On the palate, you’ll find rounded fruit and silky tannins. Elegant and slightly spicy with fresh and minor acidity, through to a lingering finish.
The Bassac winemakers get the grapes for this from “our plots that give us the best grapes each year” and it has spent 12 months in barrique.* It looks like the winemakers have handled their grapes successfully and the GSM have come up winners here.
Very Highly Recommended.
Importer Mary Pawle is very happy with it. "The Faugeres and Vermentino are from small parcels of grapes grown by another grower ( organic of course) ..... A crowd pleaser I think!". For more on the Vermentino (reviewed recently) see here.
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Faugeres is situated in the hills of Herault in the Languedoc Roussillon wine region in southern France and the AOC is well known for rich red wines made from classic Rhone grapes, and also delicious white and rose wines.
The label tells us that the best serving temperature is 16 degrees (you’ll also see 14 mentioned elsewhere on their social media) and suggests matching with lamb tagine, mushroom tournedos, lamb puff pastry, game (deer, venison), buffalo with foie gras sauce, boar stew… even the Sunday roast. Cheers.
They say: “Because of our commitment to producing authentic wines that reflect their terroir and because we work with a respect for nature and for the subtle balance that alone enables the vine to grow in secret harmony with its soil, we have chosen to cultivate our vineyards organically..”
This wine here comes from Languedoc-Roussillon, from the Côtes de Thongue. The vineyard is situated at Puisalicon, a small medieval village in the heart of the Languedoc not too far from Beziers, a town that rugby fans will be familiar with.
* The barrique, the most common type of wine barrel, originated in Bordeaux and it traditionally holds 225 liters.
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