Product Review
The smallest production of Tempier’s cuvees, this has an opulent nose, very ripe with more obvious scents of oak. Similarly the palate is very concentrated but just lacking a little character and again, just a little over-oaked. A delicious wine, quite gamey, but not as enchanting as the Tourtine. Drinking 2015-2025
Mourvedre (Monastrell in its native Spain, Mataro in Australia and California) is a black-skinned variety that has been grown in vineyards all around the western Mediterranean for centuries. Thought to have originated in Spain, it is now grown extensively throughout the Iberian Peninsula, southern France, California and South Australia. Mourvedre likes warm, dry climates and has small, thick-skinned berries – the textbook combination for making wines with intense color and high tannin levels. In fact, it is the variety's mouth-drying tannins that earned it the French nickname Etrangle-Chien (the dog strangler).
Provence is a sun soaked region in the southeastern corner of France that stretches from the Mediterranean coastline to the southern end of the Rhone valley and across to the border with Italy. The largest area is the Cotes du Provence, where roughly 80% of all wines produced are dry rose, predominantly made from Cinsault and Grenache. A few serious wine producers are replanting vineyards with Syrah and Cabernet Sauvignon in place of the ubiquitous Cinsault. Meanwhile the very small amount of white produced is made from Ugni Blanc and Clairette.
Red wine is wine made from dark-coloured grape varieties. The color of red differs based on the grapes variety or varieties used.Interestingly, black grapes yield a juice that is greenish-white. The actual red color comes from anthocyan pigments (also called anthocyanins) from the skin of the grape (exceptions are the relatively uncommon teinturier varieties, which produce a red colored juice). Most of the production centers around the extraction of color and flavor from the grape skin.
