The Iron Chevsky Wine Blog

Le Coq Rouge 2006. Red wine from the Languedoc region in the South of France. $9. Had it 4 times - love it, hate it, like it, love it -- what's going on? Iron Chevsky breaks this little number down. I thought it was me , but I now I think it is her (hm..hm... I mean the wine).

On Sunday I had this wine Le Coq Rouge 2006, from Languedoc. It was wine #5 in the line-up, after two whites - a Muscadet and a Prosecco, and two other reds - a brand name Burgundy and a Grand Cru Bordeaux. It was the cheapest wine of them all - $9. It had a simple name, a simple label, and a screwcap, and after its vastly more exalted predecessors, it promised little to impress me. It was there as a novelty, a change of pace for my friends and neighbors to something different, lesser known, and maybe, just maybe a better value? Sniff - funk and barnyard. Sip - oh, what's that? Warm ripe black fruits, earth, and hard acidity - better than I would have expected from the rustic South of France. More like a mix of Bordeaux and Cotes du Rhone. Look at the back label - Cab, Merlot, Syrah, Grenache - aha! A guy from Bordeaux made this wine in the South of France - that explains it. Not a simple wine after all - backbone of something perhaps twice the price of this $9 Languedoc, with a k...

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...

As I am flying back from France, reflecting upon the awesome past two weeks of touring some of world’s most famous wine regions, a lot of thoughts are bubbling up in my brain and waiting to be digested and poured onto the e-sheet. But one thought in particular is coming into focus, as my wife Rona is elbowing me from the seat to my left, asking how much I've missed Chinese food . I can’t help but think that too much of a good thing is not necessarily such a good thing after all. Hm? Well, the wines were great, the winery visits and meetings with the owners and winemakers were exciting and instructive, but in the end of the day after drinking a ton of world-class Grand Cru Classé Bordeaux, some interesting Languedocs, and very trendy Chateaneuf-du-Pape’s (aka CdP's), frankly I can think of nothing better than to sip Burgundy or Riesling – something lighter and with more subtlety. And after eating gastronomic delights from some of France’s coveted restaurants and brasseries that ...