The Iron Chevsky Wine Blog

Our last scheduled appointment in Languedoc was in the afternoon on a cold and cloudy Dec 27 in Chateau-de-Luc in Corbières. That day we got up at 8am to make it to a 10am visit to Borie de Maurel in Minervois, another appellation about an hour away. It was now 3pm. We were tired of driving and tired of tasting. The weather and the deadness of the surrounding area this time of year weighed heavily on our moods. But being the wine "professional" that I am, I pressed on, eventually ending up in front of the wall of Chateau de Luc in a little town called Luc-sur-Orbieu. Everything looked locked down, only an occasional car disturbing the quiet of the streets. We tried several different entrances – nothing. "We’ve seen enough – haven’t we?" – Rona asked. "Time to call it a day, perhaps? Do we really need more tasting?" Well, I came this far! Pessimistically I gave it one last try by driving around the block and eventually noticing a private back ent...

In the world of general wine consuming public, hardly anyone ever heard of Languedoc . But of course, people in the wine circles have long recognized this biggest wine producing region in France (often grouped together with its southwesterly neighbor into the Languedoc-Roussillon wine region) as something of a curiosity due to the incredible amount of diverse wines that come out of that area, many very very good, and most very cheap and deep under the radar of the average wine drinker. I think there a couple of primary reasons for this: Lack of a global marketing machine - unlike Bordeaux or Burgundy, Languedoc has never been marketed as serious wine region and thus most consumers never heard of it. Situated in the south of France, with Roussillon to the left and Southern Rhone and Provence to the right, there is a lot more cheap land in Languedoc that perhaps in any other regions in France, so production volume is large, and that keeps prices low even for high-quality wines.  Low pr...