Mas Foulaquier Gran' Tonillieres Pic Saint-Loup, Languedoc-Roussillon, France

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Blandine Chauchat's Grenache and Carignan 2009 Coteaux du Languedoc Pic Saint-Loup Gran- Tonillieres smells of leather, peat, toasted pecan, and dark berries. The sweet aspects of nuts and leather accompany its fruit flavors across a polished, juicy palate, leading to a long finish in which alkaline, saline, and kelp-like elements kick-in, evoking an oceanic wave of flavor for which this wine's persistent intensity of ripe black fruits is more than a match. This ought to be fascinating to follow for the next 4-6 years. Swiss former-architect Pierre Jequier's Mas Foulaquier - and the Les Tonillieres estate-within-an-estate of his wife and formerly Loire winemaker as well as former member of France's Assemblee Nationale Blandine Chauchat (about both of which one can read more in my issue 183 report) - represent one of the six or eight most exciting and consistently excellent sources in the Languedoc. Jequier is another partisan of the 2010 vintage but he managed formidable yet charming success with his early-harvested 2009s, a vintage he compares with 2007 - high praise at this address - and in which he finished harvesting the smallest crop in his career already September 1. -But despite the early harvest,- observes Jequier, -it's fantastic how mature the 2009s' tannins turned out to be- - in most instances, I would add. The relatively cool 2008 growing season coincided with this estate's largest harvest, and as had happened here once before, in 2002, picking extended into October, with excellent results (if at the price of a Les Calades bottling). Jequier, incidentally, is among those expressing a concern on which I have touched in general introductions to my Languedoc and Roussillon reports but fear that by the time my next ones appear two years from now I'll have to harp, namely the aesthetically and historically unfounded, seemingly arbitrary insistence of I.N.A.O. authorities as well as regional grower associations on treating Syrah as a virtual benchmark of quality - and so, for example requiring under current proposals 50% Syrah by surface area and 30% or more by volume for Pic St.-Loup. What worries Jequier is not merely the number of Foulaquier cuvees (not to mention those of other over-achieving estates) that would fail this requirement, but the fact that it ignores the widespread, mysterious - and at this estate increasingly acute - viral malady that has since early this decade been killing-off Syrah vines from here to California. Next year, incidentally, this estate will bottle its first white, from an interesting mixture of traditional cepages to which some mature black grape vines were grafted-over.Importers include Metropolis Wine Merchants, New York, 001 212 581 205 and Ansonia Imports, Wilmington, DE (215) 922-5169

Originating as ever from half each Blandine Chauchat's oldest Grenache and Carignan grown in very rocky, meager soil and raised for two years in tank and old foudre, the 2008 Coteaux du Languedoc Pic Saint-Loup Gran- Tonillieres showcases tart-edged, seedy mulberry and black raspberry underlain by toasty, piquant nut oils and smoky black, and suffused with saliva-inducing salinity. Musky floral notes emerge as this takes on air, but it remains as firm and lean as it is bright. It should be most interesting to follow this for a few years, but I am somewhat less convinced that it will become suppler with time than I about certain other youthfully tannic Foulaquier cuvees. Swiss former-architect Pierre Jequier's Mas Foulaquier - and the Les Tonillieres estate-within-an-estate of his wife and formerly Loire winemaker as well as former member of France's Assemblee Nationale Blandine Chauchat (about both of which one can read more in my issue 183 report) - represent one of the six or eight most exciting and consistently excellent sources in the Languedoc. Jequier is another partisan of the 2010 vintage but he managed formidable yet charming success with his early-harvested 2009s, a vintage he compares with 2007 - high praise at this address - and in which he finished harvesting the smallest crop in his career already September 1. -But despite the early harvest,- observes Jequier, -it's fantastic how mature the 2009s' tannins turned out to be- - in most instances, I would add. The relatively cool 2008 growing season coincided with this estate's largest harvest, and as had happened here once before, in 2002, picking extended into October, with excellent results (if at the price of a Les Calades bottling). Jequier, incidentally, is among those expressing a concern on which I have touched in general introductions to my Languedoc and Roussillon reports but fear that by the time my next ones appear two years from now I'll have to harp, namely the aesthetically and historically unfounded, seemingly arbitrary insistence of I.N.A.O. authorities as well as regional grower associations on treating Syrah as a virtual benchmark of quality - and so, for example requiring under current proposals 50% Syrah by surface area and 30% or more by volume for Pic St.-Loup. What worries Jequier is not merely the number of Foulaquier cuvees (not to mention those of other over-achieving estates) that would fail this requirement, but the fact that it ignores the widespread, mysterious - and at this estate increasingly acute - viral malady that has since early this decade been killing-off Syrah vines from here to California. Next year, incidentally, this estate will bottle its first white, from an interesting mixture of traditional cepages to which some mature black grape vines were grafted-over.Importers include Metropolis Wine Merchants, New York, 001 212 581 205 and Ansonia Imports, Wilmington, DE (215) 922-5169