Score: 92/100
This Roussillon red wine by famous local producer Maison Cazes, is a blend of 60% Syrah, 30% Mourvèdre, 10% Grenache grown on red clay soils.
Tasting Notes
This Languedoc-Roussillon red comes in a very dark and intense red color indeed, black to the core with intense red and purple hues to the rim. Looking youthful and concentrated.
The nose primarily smells spicy with notes of black pepper, and also quite earthy at first. A little closed up in fact.
Clove, vanilla, and dark cocoa, make for an intriguing, dark and deep smell, suggesting the wine is still young indeed, and so concentrated it might need a little more ageing time to open up its aromatic profile.
The palate is round and full bodied, with soft velvety but slightly granulous tannins featuring a good density.
The outstanding feature here, for a rich red, is the intensity of its acidity. The latter is crisp and mineral, nicely underlining and freshening up the prominent fruity ripe red berry flavors.
This is clearly a dry red, despite the ripeness of the fruit character providing a feel of balancing sweetness to the tight acidity.
An earthy savory feel fills the tasting experience, also featuring flavors of burnt caramel, spicy pepper, clove and nutmeg. There must be oak in this wine, given the vanilla scents, yet it is perfectly integrated and so discretely elegant.
A long warming finish, layered with the all the fruit, spiced, earthy and oaky aromas described above, cleanly defined and expressed.
Overall
An opulent and characterful Roussillon red wine. Richly-textured and scented, with a high concentration of everything we love in a warming wine from the South of France: spicy, ripe red berry fruit, discrete yet smoothening oaky elements. On top of these classic components, it adds a distinctive acidity for the style, and a distinct savoriness adding to the wine’s own authentic personality.
This is still a young wine, that asks for some ageing time to open up and blossom in complexity and depth. The potential is there for it to become a truly outstanding and complete tasting experience.
Cellar for 3 to 10 years (2020-2030).
Enjoy 🙂
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