Okay. So it didn’t snow on Sunday in Washington, and tomorrow’s forecast calls for 60 degrees. But if you took our advice and bought a few bottles of this rich French red or this one, to gird against the oncoming winter weather, you’re likely not regretting it.
Despite tomorrow’s forecast, the ground hog saw his shadow this year, meaning that winter will stretch into late March. So hearty French reds like those highlighted last week are still a good call. Plus, their slightly acidic, less overwhelming Old World style lets them pull double duty; warming on cold winter nights and as “food wines” that will go great with the first barbeques of spring.
So stocking up on some of the great values from southern France is not short sighted. And it’s been made somewhat easier by today’s publishing of the Top 5 French Value Reds list on our companion website for everyday wine drinkers, Wine for the Rest of Us.
As noted on Friday, Castelmaure Col des Vents Corbières 2009 is the type of consistently pleasing, affordable red that makes the cut as a Top 5 Value Wine. To earn a spot on the list a wine must:
1) get high marks from multiple wine critics, magazines and/or wine communities, such as CellarTracker.com;
2) earn such accolades consistently year after year for at least the past five vintages; and
3) be widely available throughout the greater Washington area – DC, Virginia and Maryland (including Montgomery County).
You shouldn’t have to go too far hunting for these wines, or worry that your neighborhood wine shop has a dusty bottle of the 2007 vintage instead of the 2009 or 2010 you just read about.
Some casual wine drinkers may not think of France – producer of the world’s most iconic and expensive wines from Burgundy, Bordeaux, Champagne and Châteauneuf-du-Pape – as a source of good value wine. Yet there’s an ocean of great, affordably-priced reds (and whites) exported from France, particularly the southern winemaking regions in the Rhône Valley and Languedoc.
Affordable and delicious Cotes du Rhône reds have plentiful for decades, but only in recent years have vintners in the vast, Mediterranean expanse known as Languedoc-Roussillon – source of one-third of France’s wine production – started focusing on quality over quantity. Like their neighbors in the Rhône Valley, they make blends from grapes grown worldwide, most notably grenache (known as garnacha in Spain), syrah (called shiraz in Australia) and mourvèdre (monastrell in Spain, mataró in Portugal).
Like Spain, southern France now produces so many great red wine values that this list will eventually have to expand into a Top 10. But for now, here are your five best bets in the French aisle or shelf of your local wine merchant.
1 Perrin et Fils Côtes du Rhône (several bottlings <$10)
France’s Perrin family – makers of the iconic and costly Beaucastel Châteauneuf-du-Pape and other luxurious Rhône Valley wines – also produces countless great value wines, red and white, under the label Perrin et Fils. At least three of its inexpensive Côtes du Rhône wines earned high marks from the critics year in and year out, yet typically sell for $8 to $12 a bottle. The most widely available is Perrin Reserve Cotes du Rhone (see “A red and white contender for best $8 wine ever”), typically a blend of about 60 percent grenache, 20 percent syrah and 20 percent mourvedre. But you can occasionally find the organically grown, grenache-dominated Perrin Côtes du Rhône Nature and the step-up Perrin Côtes du Rhône Villages for just a few dollars more.
Compare prices and find Perrin Côtes du Rhône wines online or at a store near you nationwide.
The least expensive of the Perrin et Fils red wines isn’t labeled a Côtes du Rhône, but Côtes du Ventoux, a small wine-growing area in the southeastern corner of the Rhône Valley that borders Provence. Defying basic wine-labeling conventions – which dictate that the more specific the place of origin named on the label, the more expensive the wine – La Vieille Ferme sells for about $7 or $8 a bottle and is frequently on sale in the area for as little as $5 (See “A $5 Rhone wine you can serve with pride” and “Could ‘chicken wine’ be best $5 white ever?”) Yet it is every bit as consistently pleasing as the rest of the Perrin family value portfolio. It’s also widely available in a double-size, 1.5-liter magnum bottle for $13 to $14, making it a great party wine.
Compare prices and find La Vieille Ferme online or at a store near you nationwide.
3 Castelmaure Col des Vents Corbières
Castelmaure Col des Vents Corbièresis produced by a cooperative in a smaller sub-region of the Languedoc-Roussillon called Corbières. And like most Languedoc reds, it’s made from a blend of grapes widely used in the Rhone Valley, most famously grenache and syrah. Yet Corbières is known for featuring the carignan grape, which typically takes a backseat to the more prestigious grape varieties (varietals, in winespeak) in the Rhône. A blend of 50 percent carignan, 35 percent grenache and 15 syrah, the 2009 Col des Vents is “A rich, blackberry-inflected red,” according to Ray Isle of Food & Wine magazine, who included it in his most recent recommendations from Languedoc-Roussillion. More importantly, Col des Vents has been stellar in virtually every vintage, as noted by the DC Budget Wine Examiner in this one column, that quotes critical acclaim for the 2005, 2006 and 2007 vintage. And it’s not just the professional critics who like it. The average scores for the community tasting notes on cellartracker.com range from 86 points to nearly 90 points for every vintage between 2003 and 2008.
Compare prices and find Castelmaure wines online or at a store near you nationwide.
4 Mas de Guiot Vin de Pays du Gard
From an estate in the Costières de Nimes wine-making district that straddles the Rhône Valley and Languedoc, Mas de Guiot Vin de Pays du Gard is the epitome of a bistro red. The 60-40 blend of percent syrah and grenache is consistently good and widely available throughout the Washington area, often for less than $10 a bottle. A “prestige cuvee” that’s a blend of cabernet sauvignon and syrah is equally as reliable and typically sells for $11 to $13 a bottle. The 2010 vintage of the grenache-syrah blend (oddly, grenache gets top billing on the label though it’s the minority partner in the blend) boasts “loads of fruit, mostly black currants and cherries, intermixed with licorice, a hint of camphor, and some subtle smoky and earthy notes,” according to influential wine critic Robert Parker. “This excellent estate, owned by the Cornut family, has long been a reliable source for high-quality wines and values.”
Compare prices and find Mas de Guiot online or at a store near you nationwide.
5 Château de Ségriès Cotes du Rhône
The 2006 vintage of Château de Ségriès was among the first Cotes du Rhônes we recommended when this column first launched nearly three years ago (see “This week’s best buys under $10”), and it’s been a consistent winner ever since. And though it’s maintained an affordable price of between $12 to $15 a bottle over the years, it’s frequently on sale for $9 to $11 a bottle. A classic Rhône blend of 50 percent grenache, 30 percent syrah and the rest cinsault and carignan, Château de Ségriès Cotes du Rhône tends to be a fruit-driven wine that only gets a hint of barrel aging in oak, the type of juicy red that everyday Rhône fans love.
Compare prices and find Sègriès Cotes du Rhône online or at a store near you nationwide.
You may not find all of these great values at your neighborhood wine shop, but you should be able to find one or two within a five-mile radius of your home, whether you live in DC, Maryland or Virginia. (And if you live near Calvert Woodley, a Total Wine or a Montgomery County Liquore store, you might happen on all five.)
If not, ask your local wine merchant to order one for you. It should be as easy as a phone call to the distributor/importer. You and your wine seller won't regret it.
Cheers!
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