Cave de Roquebrun - 2011 Col de Lairole Coteaux du Languedoc (France)

Tonight's wine is another bottle I picked up from friend and wine merchant Charles Bissell of Charles Fine Wines in Glastonbury, Connecticut. It came as part of a holiday pack of French reds released Christmas of '12, and has been in my cellar ever since.

Languedoc's coat of arms

Coteaux du Languedoc (now simply called Languedoc) is an appellation from the huge Languedoc-Roussillon AOC winemaking region in the south of France, located near the cities of Perpignan, Carcassonne, and Montepellier. Languedoc wines are overwhelmingly red; with a smattering of whites and roses also produced. I reviewed another wine from this region (and under this appellation) back in February. And so I didn't hesitate to open today's bottle, judging by my experience with the previous.

So armed with that knowledge, I dutifully opened my bottle of 2011 Cave de Roquebrun Col de Lairole Languedoc. Apparently, this particular vintage won some sort of award; I can neither keep track of nor seriously care about the multitude of wine awards, medals, honorable mentions, or the like that seem to be applied to many wines. I'm sure it means something to someone, or perhaps the writers of Wine Spectator, but for my purposes, it's largely irrelevant. So long as it tastes good, ages well, and pairs well with a roasted eggplant parm or my homemade vitello alla francese, we're in business.

Cracked it open and poured some out; the nose is nice...it smells of berries, dirt, and alcohol. Which may sound gross, but it's really not. There's something pleasing about an earthy red wine, all full of spices and tannins and good rich French minerals.

The taste is pretty good - tart berries with a very pleasing note of alcohol. There's fresh, bright flavors, not overdone at all and no offensive tastes or tannic sourness. I like that there's a nice taste of alcohol with a warm feeling. The finish is smooth, much smoother than the nose suggests. The aftertaste is of berries.

The texture is key here - the wine is very drinkable and doesn't take much aerating / "opening up" to be delicious. The taste is very approachable and (mercifully) straightforward; no tannic oakiness or caustic burn. Sure, it's not as juicy and jammy as the R|Collection field blend that graced my palette in February, but then again, what is?

So like a few other wine reviews I've done, this wine intersects drinkability with affordability. I believe this wine was around $12. And you don't even need to get this exact vintage; the great part about inexpensive wines with a big production is that they're available in all sorts of formats across many labels. Look for Coteaux de Languedoc (or, if it's younger than 2011, just "Languedoc") and you should be good. In conclusion, this Languedoc was a delicious everyday wine that pairs well with a lot of foods. Seek it out and drink it with abandon; I'd drink this every day if I had enough of it to do so.