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Explore France Holiday Guides Lot-et-Garonne Well-bred wines
| Well-bred wines |
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| Wednesday, 28 February 2007 | |
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Lot-et-Garonne wines offer some of the more interesting drinking experiences. South of Bordeaux and west of the Midi, the area is sheltered from the Atlantic by the forests of the Landes in what was known as the haut pays, effectively covering all the wine-growing regions up-river of Bordeaux, which were serious commercial competitors. After the Hundred Years’ War, Dutch wine merchants took over from the once all-powerful English. With their proximity to Bordeaux and the influence of the Atlantic, many of these wines are more or less a continuation of the Bordeaux region and its styles. The Buzet comeback Buzet wines extend along the left bank of the Garonne between Agen and Marmande. The wines recovered from phylloxera and from a ruling which decreed that all Bordeaux wines had to come from the Gironde département; until then, Buzet wines, despite the fame of the wines from Nérac, had been used in Bordeaux blends. The industry flourished, thanks to resourceful cooperatives – a feature typical of the region – such as Les vignerons réunis de Buzet. In 1958, the cooperatives created barrel-ageing cellars, producing well-bred wines rivalling the average Bordeaux AC. The mid 1990s saw massive plantings of classic red Bordeaux grape varieties – cabernet sauvignon, cabernet franc and especially merlot – heavy investment in modern equipment and rigorous selection at harvest time. Most wine from Buzet should have one year’s barrel maturation. Its top wine, Cuvée Napoléon, is a blend of the best grapes. The co-operative also has some individual château names. Try the Château Padère. Marmandais character The Côtes du Marmandais lies on either side of the river Garonne. With a climate similar to that of the Graves and Entre-Deux-Mers regions, it is not surprising that the same grape varieties predominate. However, some co-operatives have encouraged the planting of other grape varieties. These include Rhône’s wonderful syrah – shiraz to the Aussies – Beaujolais’ ubiquitous gamay, fer, with more aliases than Smith and Jones, and the local abouriou – only just holding its own but appearing in many red Vins de Pays. White grape varieties include sémillon, sauvignon blanc and ugni blanc, the last being Italy’s Trebbiano. In 1990 the region got appellation contrôlée status and its wines, though still far from top class, get better and better. As with Buzet wines, some wine is made ‘outside’ the cooperatives. Try Château de Beaulieu. The Duras range The red, rosé and white wines of the Côtes de Duras are encircled by Bergerac, Côtes du Marmandais and Entre-Deux-Mers. The wines’ character is, again, very Bordeaux-like. It would be hard to distinguish between a red Bordeaux and the equivalents of Duras and Marmande in a blind tasting. Red grape varieties are similar to those of Bordeaux but the white wines have a distinctive and pleasant taste of their own. The region makes particularly good sweet whites (moelleux) from sémillon, sauvignon blanc and muscadelle, with the addition of ondenc and mauzac grapes. The Loire’s chenin blanc, responsible for that region’s wonderful ‘sticky’ wines, is also grown. Vins de Pays The Lot-et-Garonne also produces more modest Vins de Pays and Vin Délimité de Qualité Supérieure (VDQS). A good one is the Côtes du Brulhois, a red produced down river from Moissac from largely Bordeaux grape varieties with the addition of the tough tannat, the working horse of the great Madiran wines. Other Vins de Pays include ‘de Lot-et-Garonne’, ‘Agenais’ and ‘du Thézac-Péricard’. Most of these are drunk locally –the best place to drink such wines. |
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