Carignan — Paroles de vignerons - Vinparleur

#Carignan is capable of anything - believe me!

Permalink, by Sebastian Nickel

Mainly grown in the Mediterranean wine regions of France and Spain, this old grape variety already belongs for a long time to the top 10 of the most planted grape varieties in the world. Like other famous grape varieties, such as Pinot or Grenache, it comes in different varieties: red, grey and white. Carignan wines therefore also carry different colors: white, rosé and red, with the latter dominating. Made from very old, middle-aged or young vineyards (as people are replanting Carignan for some years now!), the wines offer a wide range of styles. Carignan is actually a real “terroir grape” that reacts with great sensitivity to the soil and the environment.

And here we have a real terroir Carignan, the “Vieilles Vignes 2016” from my friend Pierre Cros. The faithful readers of this blog already know him ... At the same time pioneer and conservator, he has a true love for the old Carignan vines (some well over 100 years old) he inherited from his grandparents. Oh, he also loves other grape varieties, as proves the great diversity of variatals he cultivates in his vineyards of the Minervois: Nebbiolo, Syrah and Cinsault, Aramon, Picpoul noir and Touriga nacional, Vermentino, Grenache blanc, gris and noir ... Just to name a few.

But back to his 100% Carignan wine: Produced by the method of carbonic maceration, it shows an explosive and intense blend of red fruit, spices and the scent of fresh plants and herbs. Very seductive. Soft and fresh on the palate, with fine but well-structured tannins that give the wine a lot of juiciness and length. Great grape, great vintage, great wine! An excellent example of the fact that good wine is created in teamwork: A successful collaboration between the grape varieties and locations, the vintage and the winemaker.

Open it now and enjoy it with grilled duck breast or leave it in the cellar for a few more years.
The Guide Hachette loves this old Carignan wine from Pierre Cros

Permalink, by Pierre Cros

Listed in our wine guide and awarded several times with our highest honours for more than 30 years. And what’s new in 2017?

The old Carignan vines come over with a rather young expression and mild and fresh scent of cherries and plums. No high tannin extraction or severe wood characters (maximum 6 months of oak maturation) in this wine, convincing with finesse and soft structure. Just a touch of butter and caramel remind of the oak barrels. A perfect symbiosis between wood and wine, giving furthermore elegance and complexity to the overall picture.

Drinking from 2019 to 2025, to wild boar.
In the #Minervois you should drink traditional!

Permalink, by Sebastian Nickel

A nice red wine in the glass, which illuminates the table, a succulent pork roast with fried potatoes and green beans, some pleasant guests ... It is Sunday 12:30, please have a seat! A wonderfull tradition for which even time seems to stop for a few hours to sit down with us at the table.

The Cuvée of Pierre Cros, simply called “tradition”, is a perfect match for these moments. Made mainly from Carignan and Grenache grapes, as the tradition in the Minervois just pretends, as well as a little Cinsault and Syrah, it turns out to be a true Sunday lunch wine. Fruity as you want it to be, spicy as it should be, with gentle tanin structur and crisp acidity refreshing the palate. At the end, the scent of hazelnuts and pineapple is surprising, which definitely settles the wine into the “special wines” category and also confirms that the Minervois is a great wine-growing region and the duo Carignan-Grenache remains unbeatable.

A wine that pleases to everyone at any time, on Sunday, as well as on other weekdays.
A good glass of... #Minervois Tradition 2014 from Pierre Cros

Permalink, by Sebastian Nickel

It almost seems a bit silly to point out that a wine comes up with aromas and taste of fresh grapes. Isn’t that obvious? Well, it’s not that obvious at all, because through maturity, vinification and aging certain wines may somehow drift away from the initial raw material. Thus, their bouquets suggest a big amount of fruits (peach, apricot, fig, banana ...), spices (cinnamon, vanilla, pepper, star anise ...) and even plants (fern, mint, hay ...), thus hiding the grapes.

This is not so in this case. This wine is pure grapes! I even hear hear the crunching of the berries in my head at each sip. Being a good ol’ traditional Languedoc wine, it’s manly made of CARIGNAN, GRENACHE and CINSAULT, nevertheless authorizing the grandiose SYRAH to participate in the feast. A few months of ageing in concrete tanks protects the wine from outside temperatures in a natural way, preserving freshness and authenticity.

Fresh grapes, cherry, currant and strawberry, as well as a tad of elderberry wood and that’s it! Smooth on the palate, with crisp acidity and fine, low profile tannins. Generous and fluid, it will help all CARNIVORES to finish the BBQ season. During fall, with its rain and decreasing temperatures, it will enhance the taste of a coq au vin or add a little sunshine to a risotto with sun-dried tomatoes and prosciutto. Being a true multi talented wine, it will also offer many opportunities for HERBIVORES to feast: the first fried mushrooms, penne all’arrabiata, risotto with porcini mushrooms… You name it!
That’s why I love #Carignan...

Permalink, by Sebastian Nickel

What to say about Carignan, except that I love this grape? You wonder why?

SHORT ANSWER : Go to a Carignan tasting and you will know!

INTERMEDIATE ANSWER : It has character, nerve, fruit and spices. Its tannins are fresh and have much relief. The vines may live for more than a hundred years. It’s a restart level fighter: (some) people did not want to keep it any longer, and therefore many of them ripped it out.… but its still there! It comes in three colors, black, gray and white, like many great varieties, giving pleasant wines, wines for our table and fine meals, and wines to be kept for ages.

DETAILED ANSWER : For the first time I met this wine in my glass during the late 90s and I started working with it in the Languedoc, specifically in the Minervois, in 2002. For those who do not remember: During harvest in September 2002 itwas raining, and a lot. There was much damage done to the vineyards, and I remember a plot of old Carignan that had been flooded. The plot was (and still is) in a spot called « Les Aspres“which usually refers to the stony and dry soil. Here the vines are rooted only in about 50 cm of topsoil, before encountering a rock slab. The latter indeed that caused the inundation because ther w. Nobody believed in the 2002 vintage and it is true that many grapes were affected by rot and some of the wines seemed a bit”diluted". But I still have the wine from this century old Carignan in my cellar. It’s now almost 13 years old, still tasting great !

Lets have a look at the same vineyard in 2003, a heatwave year. Again it was him who came out best, along with its old regional colleagues (Terret, Alicante, Cinsault, Picpoul ...). That’s interesting, right? Yet there still are people today, even experts, making a difference between these traditional grape varieties and « improving» grape varieties. Those mostly come from other wine regions, without being necessarily suited to the sometimes extreme climate conditions of Mediterranean vineyards.

This brings us to some very simple basics of viticulture and wine making: each variety needs is a suitable soil and a suitable climate, thoughtful cropping, proper care, as well as vinification and aging that outlines its qualities. Then EVERY grape variety will give us some good wine…
We can not despise the Unloved any longer! #wine #diversity

Permalink, by Sebastian Nickel

This wine “entirely made by hand” exists since 14 years. The vineyards which he comes from accumulate almost 400 years. Its composition almost was heresy in the beginning of this millennium, as proves the story that sounded the death warrant of its predecessor: an AOC MINERVOIS from the vintage 1999, made only from PICPOUL NOIR. Sales of this product were officially banned, due to the grape variety it was made from. PICPOUL NOIR however is an official grape variety of MINERVOIS and several other prestigious appellations, such as CHATEAUNEUF-DU-PAPE. A stroke of luck, finally, because this incident aroused the envy of PIERRE to go even further and create this unique blend, entirely made from prohibited, unpopular and unloved varietals (PICPOUL NOIR, ARAMON, ALICANTE & CARIGNAN).

Today, some of these varietals almost have disappeared from the map. They were partly replaced by other varieties, so called « improving varieties ". This seems to have led to a reduction of the diversity in French vineyards and in consequence to a certain loss of variety in tastes over the last 40 years. Only 10 grape varieties now cover 70% of the vineyard area cultivated in France, with a total of 40 varieties playing an important role economically.

On Vinparleur we defend a very simple policy: we love all grape varieties, without any exception. The more, the better!

To convince those who are still in doubt, please find here our impression of PIERRE CROS’ MAL AIMÉS (THE UNLOVED) 2012:

Clear garnet color, slightly hazy due to bottling without filtration, this Vin de France (formerly Vin de Table) impresses with its intense and bright bouquet of red and black fruits, especially marked by the luscious fruity-vegetal character of Cassis and a handful of black olives. In bottles for two years, it opens in a few minutes, enriching its bouquet with aromas of pastry and a little cocoa. The mouth is rather light and smooth with a refreshing acidity. Low in tannins, this wine still has a beautiful silky structure and slight tanin grip giving length and character. Drink now, or cellar for another 2-3 years.

HERBIVORE SUPPORT eggplant lasagna, without an hesitation!
CARNIVORE SUPPORT You’ll be spoiled for choice: grilled lamb chops, black pudding, roast pork, raw ham, boar pâté, coq au vin ...

PS FOR THE CURIOUS, here are some figures for these varieties:
ARAMON: 150 230 hectares planted in 1958 - 9084 hectares in 2004.
Carignan: It covered 43% of Languedoc-Roussillon’s vineyards in 1979, against 13.5% in 2010.
PICPOUL NOIR: some residual 200 hectares planted in 1990.
If you add details of these varieties with the surfaces of CINSAULT NOIR, TERRET and GRENACHE BLANC, ALICANTE BOUCHET and MACABEU these traditional varieties of the Mediterranean vineyards add a drop of 260 000 hectares between 1979 and 2010 ...
Let’s look at what happens at the time of bud burst. #wine #vineyard #grapes

Permalink, by Sebastian Nickel

Vine leaves its winter rest according to a fairly well established « protocol » that already starts in winter. Everything begins with so called « tears », drops of water that appear on pruning wounds. They indicate that the roots of the vine have completed their winter sleep and become active again, pushing water up towards the wood. The number of weeks that may pass between appearance of the first tears and bud burst varies, because the internal clock of the plant depends on soil temperature and length of days. When all the external conditions are favorable, the vine wakes up and starts the new vintage.

All varieties are evolving at their own pace. Beyond their sensitivity to external factors, they also have a kind of internal clock, included in their genetic code. Depending on that natural “biorhythm”, we distinguish between early and and late ripening varieties. What matters to us in the end it is to pick the grapes from each vine at their optimum maturity to create our wines. That’s why it’s useful to know the ripening period of varieties we plant. Thus, based on comparison with the Chasselas variety as a standard, grapes have been classified as first-, second-, and third-phase varieties, according to whether they ripen at the same time, 12 days later or 24 to 30 days laters than Chasselas grapes if grown under the same conditions. This classification is also called Classification Pulliat, according to a French ampelographist of the XIXth century.

Short cycle varieties are traditionally established in cool wine regions and grape varieties of longer cycles in warmer regions. Of course, the short-cycle varieties show some tolerance to a warmer climate, as there is some good Chardonnay and or Cabernet to be found in warm wine regions, and Viognier, a very aromatic white grape from Condrieu in the northern Rhône Valley, since several years is extending into the Mediterranean vineyards. The installation of third-phase varieties in cold regions, however, is more difficult and sometimes impossible, because their grapes simply do not arrive at maturity.

But let’s look at what happens at the time of bud burst. The buds open in days and unfold the first leaves. But that’s not all. They also contain the tiny grapes, that will be picked five or six months later. In other words, the buds that are bursting at the moment around the vineyards of the northern hemisphere, already contain the harvest of this year. That is why winemakers are particularly concerned by frost or hail in spring. While these two phenomena rarely put the plants in danger, they may still seriously affect the harvest of the year.
THE SECRET OF OLD VINES

Permalink, by Sebastian Nickel

Nobody really knows the secret of old vines, but the legends (sometimes urban) are many. It appears for example, they make better wines than the young ones, nevertheles, no one can really prove it. Whatsoever, winemaking is a complex process, just the age of the vines is not sufficient to “do good.”

Fortunately Bacchus happened to meet several key factors: very old vines (CENTENARIANS), a great variety (CARIGNAN), a Mediterranean vintage (2009), a passionate and experienced winemaker (PIERRE).

Garnet red with plenty of light and fire, a powerful nose of gingerbread, figs and prunes with a hint of cherry and brandy. Yes, I dare say the word “brandy” and I know what you’re thinking: there is alcohol... And yes, it is a warm and generous wine, a Mediterranean wine made in a Mediterranean vintage, but it all perfectly fits! Soft palate, even velvety, silky tannins, the whole thing carried by a good background of freshness. It is long in the mouth, even very long, generous and spicy. Although already 5 years old, it can still be kept in the cellar, as the tannins and the flavours promise great potential for development.

HERBIVORE SUPPORT : A pumpkin pie with sesame seeds and some sweet yellow onions to enhance softness would be good for this wine. You may also add TURMERIC, CORIANDER seeds and CARAWAY to face the wines spiciness. I suggest to put some RACLETTE cheese on top, whose taste is more pronounced than GRUYÈRE cheese.

CARNIVORE SUPPORT : A RIBEYE STEAK, a BBQ, some salt and pepper... et voila! I also encourage the choice of EGGPLANT LASAGNE with LAMB MEAT or hot and spicy SQUID.