Wine region: France, South-West

The South West is not so much of a region as a concept. Years ago, a group of growers were identified by a famous French writer called Pierre Casamayor and formed under a banner called “Les Vingt du Sud-Ouest” (The twenty of the south west). There were actually more than 20, but that doesn’t matter. The idea was to create a banner uniting the disparate regions of this largely unheralded part of France and to get the growers to exchange ideas about vineyard practice and vinification.

Until recently as we have said these wines were virtually unknown outside of their particular region, but have acquired an international recognition due to a passion on the part of the vignerons for regionality combined with a desire to constantly improve quality and challenge themselves (and each other). The south west is not one homogenous region but a mosaic of diverse wine styles and grape varieties as well as unique local geographies, micro-climates, cultures, cuisine and personalities.

So what do we call the South West France? Well, notionally, it begins just outside Bordeaux on the Dordogne with the various appellations of Bergerac making Bordeaux style reds and white.

If we move to the Garonne, the other tributary of the Gironde, we find the wines of Buzet, Duras and Marmandais. These tend to dominated by their particular co-operatives and are more rustic wines.

The great vineyards of Cahors from the Malbec are located on the terraces above the Lot river which carves its way towards Aveyron and the rarely seen wines of Marcillac and Entraygues made from the Mansois (or Fer Servadou grape)

Historic Gaillac on the River Tarn has been producing wines since Roman times. This was where the first sparkling wines were made. White grapes including Mauzac and the intriguingly named Len de l’Eh, red grapes include the earthy Fer Servadou and Duras (not to be confused with Cotes de Duras)

Fronton wine is drunk enthusiastically by the natives of Toulouse. It is made from the indigenous Negrette, Syrah and sometimes Gamay.

In Gascony and Madiran we find fruity aromatic whites and powerful tannic red wines, the latter made from the Tannat grape with support from Cabernet Sauv & Cab Franc.

Jurancon, in the shadow of the Pyrenees, is home of the historic Manseng grape. These wines (dry and sweet) are becoming very popular on restaurant wine lists.

Irouleguy comprises several communes in the pays Basque. Mainly red and rose are made (Tannat and the two Cabernets are the grapes) with a little white from Manseng and Courbu

The wines of the South West share a few things in common. Each one has a regional identity. Vineyards are small; everything tends to be done by hand and as naturally as possible. All the growers we deal with respect nature and the environment. These are all also wines that are meant to be drunk with food. They tend to have high acidity and tannin which is perfectly suited to a cuisine that majors in duck and goose fat and meaty products. These are not commercial wines: you never see them in the supermarket and hardly, if ever, on the high street. It is not just that they are not produced in sufficient quantity, but the wines are not about compromising to fit a customer profile

There are now two styles of made. The everyday drinking wines (known as vins de Plaisir, vin de copains – wines of pleasure, wines for friends) and the powerful oaked versions intended for ageing (vin de garde – a wine for keeping)

Whichever you drink we would say enjoy the food and enjoy the wine for what they are. Our company is now called Les Caves de Pyrene, but it used to be called Santat. Santat is the Occitan (the famous dialect of the southern France) for Santé – your health. So we say Santat! and enjoy the meal!

The torrefying travails of the 2003 are well documented; in the great heat, grapes were literally roasting on the vines. From Pau to Toulouse this was a vintage of enormous difficulty. 2005, conversely, seems to be yet another supervintage for white wines; with so many growers working from low yields and on the lees, gone are the days of thin, acidic wines. A succession of belting vintages for the reds from 1998 (’03 excepted) onwards, although with growers like Didier Barré you can almost name any year in history and he will smile seraphically as if to suggest that all Madiran is good Madiran. 05s are exceptional by any standard, marked by grace, rippling with sweet fruit. Enhanced by technological savvy in the winery (new oak, microbullage) the Godzillas of Gascony can be expected to drink comparatively young, although ageing them will obviously reap glorious rewards.

Not all wines from the South West are designed to realign the molecular structure of your palate. Ch. Plaisance, from the Fronton, is, as one might infer from the name, pleasing on the gums, as are the more structured wines of Ch. Le Roc. Look at wines from Négrette, Duras & Gamay for alternative summer quaffing. For those of you who aspire to speak in “russet yeas and honest kersey noes” our range of Gaillacs (five) & Marcillacs (two) will drink happily in your idiom. Two Marcillacs?! As Lady Bracknell might have animadverted: “To have acquired one Marcillac may be regarded as good fortune; to have acquired two looks like careless obsession.” (I’ve been told to leave that line in again.) Big can be beautiful though especially if you enjoy tannin on your tusks or lees in your lungs. Contrast the jawdropping Escausses Vigne de l’Oubli – another “semi” Sauvignon in the Moulin des Dames bracket (lots of lees contact, new oak, thick with flavour – we second that emulsion!) with the more traditional ethereal qualities of a Plageoles Mauzac-inflected Gaillac.

The red versions pit pure extract of black night against paleperfumed subtlety: the Escausses reds eat Saint-Emilions for breakfast; the Plageoles wines are in their own palely loitering uncompromising idiom. David Fourtout’s whites (Chateau Les Verdots) are a revelation, unctuous and exotic, a necessary addition to our Dordogne section. And don’t forget Monsieur Luc de Conti, aka Monsieur Mayonnaise, aka Le Vinarchiste. With lower yields and greater fruit extraction the wines from Bergerac are an impressive reminder of what can be achieved with Bordeaux grape varieties for under £10.00. But this is all so mundane, you cry…

A trip to Malbec-istan the other year yielded our xithopagi, (lots of scrabble points) most notably the wines of Clos de Gamot whose bottles might bear the ancient Roman warning “exegi monumentum aere perennius” (I have reared a monument more lasting than brass) - translated into modern winespeak as don’t forget your toothbrush. Creosote them gums or lay down for a millennium or two. The “classic” wines from Chateau du Cèdre, Chateau Paillas and Clos Triguedina are, relatively speaking, much more amenable beasts; they slide down your throat like the Good Lord in red velvet breeches to quote Frederic Lemaitre (Pierre Brasseur) in Les Enfants du Paradis – not! This year the big boys are jousting to make the supreme super cuvee for squillionaires. Step forward “Le Grande Cèdre” from Chateau du Cèdre and “Le Pigeonnier” from Chateau Lagrezette. Never mind the hilarious prices – these are wines made with meticulous care from minuscule yields and are to be sipped rather than supped. To coin a phrase we’ve copped (the Cot) in the Lot.

Milton described “a wilderness of sweets” in Paradise Lost. Check out your quintessential nectar options with Jean-Bernard Larrieu’s Jurançons, Pacherencs from Brumont and Barré, the wondrous Vin d’Autan from Plageoles and finally the honeydewsome twosome from Tirecul-La-Gravière and discover the glories of nature and the wild winemaker’s art.