1997 Mas de Gourgonnier Les Baux Rouge

[Scoop]

With a vacation to Provence rapidly approaching, I decided to get in the right frame of mind before the trip by opening a bottle of Provencal wine from my cabinet, the 1997 Mas de Gourgonnier Les Baux Rouge, a wine that virtually shouts "French country".

Organically produced and a blend of cab sauv, grenache and syrah,it's a deep ruby wine with a surprisingly complex nose of core black fruit, gobs of barnyard earth, some animal funkiness and some herbal notes, like basil. It practically moos. The palate apes the nose in large measure with balanced acidity and chewy-yet-approachable tannins, running into a lengthy if rustic finish. At 10.99 a bottle, and fairly widely available, it might be the next best thing to being in Les Baux itself. We paired it with a Korean beef short rib stew, which was full of that special red pepper (the name escapes me).

By the way, although I will be armed with Oz Clarke's Wine Companion for the South of France, if anyone has some vineyard/winery suggestions for Provence, I'm all ears.

Cheers,

C. Matthews