11/02/01 – Chateau Mansenoble (France) 1999

Chateau Mansenoble (France) 1999
The 1998 vintage of this wine also made ‘wine of the week’ and here we have a succesor that’s every bit as good. It comes from Miramont, an area of the Languedoc region in Southern France, home of so many great value reds. If you have grown a little tired of the straightforward, jammy flavours of much Australian and Chilean wine in this price range, you’ll like this wine as much as I do. That’s not to say there is any shortage of glorious, ripe fruit: the nose is powerful and tight, with aromas of cedar, cherry and damson plums and juicy blackcurrant with a wonderfully clean, unoaked freshness. On the palate the fruit is framed by savoury tannins and a tough sheen of tightly-focused, chewy bittersweet fruit and acidity. Nicely textured, this is the kind of wine that reveals itself slowly as the sheer depth and quality of fruit emerges, but that makes it so much more interesting, complex and rewarding. Exclusively imported by West Country deli chain Chandos, this is being entered for the first time in the International Wine Challenge 200. I’d be amazed if it didn’t pick up a top award in its class. UK Stockist: Chandos Deli 5.99