Back up in Scotland and I've forgotten that it tends to be three or four degrees cooler than in the south. As the brisk spring winds whip around the hills, driving white clouds across the cool blue sky, it feels time to open up a wine that was born in the dry dusty heat of the Languedoc. A wine which has touched the long hot summers that Scotland can only dream of. Domaine Sainte Rose "La Garrigue" 2007, a boutique producer, run by a British couple who are making wine in a new world style, with Australian winemaker Leigh Sparrow. They've done well with the marketing, the bottle looks good and is definitely leading the way, sporting a black embossed screw-cap and simple, straight forward label. The back label explains that this a blend of Syrah and Grenache, grapes which have proved extremely successfull in this part of France. The vineyards are situated just outside the small village of Servian which lies in between Beziers and Pezenas, historic market towns with long standing connections to the Cathars. Back to the wine, I have to be honest, I was expecting better. It has a good colour, a simple nose and a slightly hard, breif and hollow palate. On reading back the last sentence to myself I think it sounds pretty harsh, OK, so it does have certain aspects which I enjoyed, the tannins were quite nice and easy going, there was some ripe berry fruit present and if you like the vanilla and coconut aromas of oak then you won't be dissapointed. It's a very simple wine which has been made in a very contempory way, employing plenty of modern winemaking techniques to produce an early drinking wine which will definitely give some satisfaction if washed down with a thick BBQ steak or some other smoky meaty dish. The best point about this wine is that it falls into a price point that will make it quite appealing, £6.99 from Majestic.
There are definitely potential pit falls associated with screw capping wines, put simply it's not as easy as it should be. Corks are extremely forgiving, they also give bad winemakers a good excuse, "oh, it must be the cork....". With screw caps, what you get in the glass is pretty much the same wine that the winemaker tasted before he made the important decision to bottle. In wine, the screw cap can offer more transparency, displaying the creators skill, or sometimes lack of it.
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