Cabardes is a relatively small appellation for red and rosé wines produced in the hills just North of Carcassonne in Southern France. The appellation was introduced in 1999, to represent and ensure the quality of the wines, which have been produced here since Roman times. The Languedoc-Roussillon/cabards">Cabardès catchment area, situated in the foothills of the Montagne Noire, is on the border between the Languedoc-Roussillon and the South West of France. This dual identity is reflected in the Grape varieties that make up the wines of the appellation: Grenache and Syrah from the south and east of France; Cabernet Franc, Cabernet Sauvignon and Merlot from the southwest and Bordeaux.
The result is Rich, unusual and Characteristic red wines. Most of the wines produced under the appellation are red, but a small amount of rosé wines are also produced. These are generally wines of intense flavour and character, Dry in style and produced by the Bleeding method. This method involves separating, or "bleeding", the slightly macerated free-run Juice from recently crushed dark-skinned grapes.
At the 2021 Decanter World Wine Awards, the world’s largest wine competition saw its biggest year to date, with 18,094 wines tasted from 56 countries. Over 15 consecutive days in June 2021, almost 170 expert wine judges, including 44 Masters of Wine and 11 Master Sommeliers, awarded 50 Best in Show, 179 Platinum, 635 Gold, 5,607 Silver and 8,332 Bronze medals. Join Decanter at our Fine Wine Encounter NYC this June, where you will have the opportunity to sample 23 of these top awarded Gold, Plati ...
The Roussillon is home to a range of wine styles, at varying price points. Sweet fortified wines (vin doux naturel) used to dominate production, with still dry wines (vin sec) in the minority. In the last 30 years, however, this has completely changed, and vin sec now makes up the majority (80%) of the Roussillon’s output. The recent Wines of Roussillon tasting, held in London, not only highlighted many good quality dry wines being produced, but also cemented the idea that Roussillon whites are ...
I’d like to say we took advantage of the lockdown and its related commotion to do a stock-take, explore new avenues, turn over intriguing stones, widen and deepen our drinking, taking careful notes as we went. Sadly, no. I won’t say we got stuck in a rut, but we did tend to stick with comfort wines – and “comfort”, in our case, means familiar. Regular readers of this quarterly column can probably guess the labels on the resulting empties. We have a wider range of comfort foods, I’m afraid, than ...
