One of my friends asked me if we were "going sober for October" to which I replied, no, we're drinking beer for the rest of the year! Actually, we had a bottle of wine on Saturday evening, for a change, and delicious it was too! I bought this wine quite a while ago (probably around 2008) It's quite well known in its region and is one of those wines that defies the standard French system of wine classification (AOC) by being a bit of a rebel, using grape varieties that it shouldn't for the place it's in (near Avignon/Arles). Consequently it's classified as a "Vins de Pays" or a country wine even though the price it commands is more like a famous Châteauneuf-du-Pape estate or a decent Bordeaux chateaux. The wine is made by blending Cabernet Sauvignon (usually a Bordeaux variety) and Syrah (a variety used in the South) and it's fantastic, especially with 15 years of bottle age. It's an elegant wine, somewhat halfway between a Southern Bordeaux and a Northern Rhone, a deep ruby colour with sweet cassis and spice flavours, rich, dense with a lingering finish (9/10). I think I paid around £20 for this wine back in 2008 which felt quite expensive for a Southern French red at the time; you'd struggle to find a bottle for less than £80 now, and probably three times that in a restaurant.
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