2003 Merlot de Campuget

[tandkvd]

I guess this is the correct place to post about this wine. I am not familiar with France and or French wine.

I am not sure what wine this is but here is what is on the bottle.

Vin De Pays D'oc
Merlot de Campuget
2003
Mis en bouteille a la propriete (I gues this means that it is estate bottled)
Red Table Wine

I paid $8.99 at World Market
When I first opened this bottle it smelled awfull. I was sure the wine had gone bad. However, I let it sit for about 20 min. before I took the first sip. The smell had soffened a bit and the taste was far differant from the smell. I then let it sit for about an hour while I cooked dinner (a frozen pizza from Sams that I doctored up with fresh mushrooms, fresh motzerella, onions and seasonings with a salad). The wine was very good, too strong of a wine for my wife but I liked it. I wish I was better at discribing taste of wine. But, it did have a strong funky smell at first. All I can think of as I finish the bottle is an earthy, smokey flavor maby what ya'll discribe as pencil shavings.

Does anyone else know anything about this wine? I thought it was going to be Merlot because of the name, but it is a bigger wine than any Merlot I have had before.

[Innkeeper]

Mis en bouteille is the same made and bottled thing; definitely not estate grown. Since it is a Vin de Pays, the grapes definitely came from France. It is Merlot too.

[tandkvd]

I did a quick search and found this on the 2002.

http://www.sigels.com/ecellars2/campuget.htm

Campuget Merlot
Planted 20 years ago, Merlot comprises close to 12 acres on the southwestern corner of the property. These vineyards were planted more densely than the Grenache and Syrah at the estate, to help ensure maximum ripeness of the Merlot. The grape clusters are destemmed, and then vinified in tank. Unwooded, the Merlot is bottled around the first of April every year to capture the absolute freshness of the fruit. Very purple in color with a dense, sweet, chocolaty, black cherry nose, this silky textured wine finishes with a blast of berry fruit. Bottled unfiltered.
2002 $8.99

Still hard to believe this is Merlot.

[hotwine]

Found some db notes on the Ch. de Campuget Syrah (Costieres de Nimes) from throughout Feb 2000, in which we had the wine as an aperatif, with "beef Burgundy" (from a newspaper recipe), and with oak-grilled burgers.... quite acceptable in all those applications. $6.99 at the time. Dunno if that's the same producer as your Merlot.

The db says there's more of the Syrah in the cellar....

[hotwine]

Hmph. The database lied.... nary a bottle to be found. Probably among the hundred or so I gave a part-time housekeeper a couple of years ago. The Syrah was the '97 BTW.

Did find some Cline Small Berry Vineyard Mourvedre, also from '97, so having one now. Still luscious fruit on the nose and palate, enough tannins to carry a bit further, a good finish for the grape, 14% alc/vol. Mistakenly charged only $8.99 when purchased in '01.

[Thraz]

One reason you may not have recognized it as Merlot (although I'm guessing, I have not had this particular wine): Merlot is not widely planted in the South of France. It is normally a Bordeaux grape. Temperatures in the South are higher, and were even much higher than usual in 2003, which could explain why the wine was heavier than one would expect for a Merlot.

[Kcwhippet]

I don't have current figures, but back in 1996, the figures given for the Languedoc alone list Merlot plantings at 62,000 acres.

[Thraz]

Today it is about 25,000 hectares, which is about right. However, Languedoc Roussillon is a huge wine area (300,000 hectares, the largest in the world), and Merlot represents only about 8%. More importantly, almost none of the appellations specifies Merlot as a component of the grape mix, so Merlot tends to be used only marginally in the mix. Where the mix contains primarily Merlot, it has to be a vin de pays. The only appellation I could find that actually lists Merlot in the allowed grape mix is Côtes de Cabardès, which I have never had (it can contain up to 40% of a combination of Cabernet and Merlot).