Searching for GREAT French RED WINE in the Languedoc

The Languedoc is the largest wine region in France. It was once known for producing swaths of bulk and table wine, but things are different today. Join creative Fabien and I on a journey through this dynamic region in search of great red wine. We'll meet producers both big and small and introduce you to the culinary wonders of this region. The jaunt through this slice of southern France starts right now. The Bonfils family owns properties all over the Languedoc and today we're stopping in at Chateau Capitou which is located in the appellation of Le Clap. This chic property has a restaurant and hotel on site and we meet up with Melanie who will show us around. So I guess I'm gonna get some good footage tonight. It's beautiful. And then we're gonna have a walk in the vineyard I get to ride the golfer I missed you. Welcome home baby. The private villa of Capitou is stunning and it boasts views over the appellation. What do you think about the villa? I'm moving in right Beautiful place. Wow. And on this side you're gonna have the sira, the grenache noire. It's a little hot and humid but we're up for a vineyard walk. It's roussanne. Look at the color. It's all red. The only problem is mosquitoes. I don't know what's worse today the humidity or the mosquitoes. A quick visit to the cellar to get some shots and then Melanie sets up the tasting for us. You can make white, red and rosé in Le Clap Wine King's not the only YouTube channel that has a black glass. Reds in the appellation are GSM blends with another permitted grape that I love. The carrion comes out right away. I love it. I love it There's one grape that can take oak really well. It is Syrah. I love Syrah. Thomas Bonfi joins us and Melanie shows me a wine that stops me in my tracks. This has to have carrion. Love carrion. Don't sleep on the grape. I love that wine. I love that wine. I'm gonna have a little bit more. We're ready for a big night at the Chateau's on-site restaurant Asado. Who's ready to party? I think we're ready to party. No Mathieu? Laurent Bonfils welcomes us with an aperitif. Oyster cocktails. Get the oyster in first and hold it. Not bad. Laurent is a passionate man with a big clear vision. For me my dream is that the people from New York wake up and say to his wife hey my dear what do you think if we go to Languedoc for two or three days. We want the people when they drink our wine remember of the holidays they spend in our thing. Laurent, Melanie and Thomas help get the party started with some La Clope is located right on the sea which means they're fresh. Lemon butter oyster. True to its name the chefs at Asado really know how to grill meat. Tonight we're having pork, beef and grilled fish. Tomahawk. Wow the tomahawk and the Cote du Roussillon. Do you approve of the meat? We like the colors. You want vegetable? You want to poison me mother... We're in France so the meal ends with cheese and sweet wine. I'm excited about the stinky cheese and the River Salts. I love Bondu Naturale. Some of the most underrated wines in the world. Fortified wines from the south of France. Smells awesome. You gotta think walnut, almond, dried apricot, leather, toffee. Not gonna lie I'm a little bit slow this morning. You're gonna meet lots of little castles but there is lots of story around estates and casseroles charged with that. Chateau Vagelas is in the nearby appellation of Corbiere and the harvest is in full swing. This will go over the vine. The berries will fall down here. Hand harvesting is romanticized but mechanical harvesting is becoming the way to go if you want wines that don't break the bank. Things I do to try to get a shot. The red wines of Corbiere are primarily made of Grenache, Syrah and Morvedre. Winemaker Christian joins us as Thomas talks about the benefits of machine harvesting. To act quickly because as you can see today there's rain but like maybe in five minutes we won't have the rain. It's because the maturity you just have it at one moment. You don't have it after, you don't have it before, you have at that specific point. With one team it would take one morning for example to harvest one hectare. A machine it takes just one hour. We can work night and day with only one guy. Back at the chateau we check out some of the fresh juice that will become wine. They're moving it to the fermentation tank. They're basically racking up the juice before putting it back in the tank for fermentation. Wine grapes are a lot sweeter than table grapes. The high sugars are converted to alcohol and red wines get the color from skins in a process called maceration. Raise the temperature of the wine in the tanks after fermentation. Get the perfect extraction and the perfect balance. Let's see if all that hard work turns into great wine. We stop by a local restaurant to have lunch and taste the wines of Vagelas. It used to be one of the region where there was a lot of ballpoint in the past. This smells a lot more expensive than it actually is. It smells great. I like this quite a bit for that kind of price. It's like 14 bucks outside France. These big red wines call for meat and that's exactly what we're going to get here. This is the proper way to cook the wolf Fabien. I scared people with the camera. Yeah it seems like. We're in a tiny village in the Corbeil so they don't open here. Christian rejoins us and brings us a wine from his family estate Chateaumignan. It's delicious but the Vagelas excellence is really what gets me excited. It's quite serious stuff. It's made of Grenache, Syrah, Morvedra and Carignan. In France it's all about the food to pair with the wine and my weapon of choice is this oily standing rib roast. I could not leave France without having some Cote de Boeuf. Apparently I can't leave the restaurant until I gnaw off the rib to have off the bone. These two reds go perfectly with my meat. I'd say the trip is off to a fabulous start. It's one of my favorite places. Look how beautiful it is. Who wouldn't want to live and move here? Saint-Chinien is a large appellation in the Languedoc and Fabien takes me to Maison de Vigne in the center of the village. They have a selection of over 80 different winemakers. There are notable whites being made in Saint-Chinien too. It's got a really nice nose. How much is that wine? 14 euros. Really really nice wine. It was Grenache Blanc. I really liked this red that I had sent to me a couple weeks ago and the white is better than the red. A local winemaker stops in and we try his Sierra and Grenache. The tannins are really silky. No wood. No wood. You expect it to be bigger because of the nose but finally it's very round, very elegant. We move on to a fabulous producer, Mastalbo. Stunning wine. GSM blend and the acidity there again is stunning. I think we have to keep to this kind of big red wines. So much strawberry, neat peppery type notes. Earth. 70 Grenache, 30 Carignan. What do you like about this wine? Everything. It's like a nice beautiful go. The business time is during the summer. Some nice nice really nice tastings. Oh yeah the wines are very very nice. What you got up here is Saint-Chinien but further up you go it's Saint-Chinien which is one of the rare village appellation of the Languedoc. High above Saint-Chinien is Domaine de Cambus which comes complete with a view. Welcome to my crib. The guesthouse and winery is run by a proprietor Martin and today he has a few guests so we'll head down to the cellar together. Only three barrels. Is it just one wine? I'm not a big fan of wooden wines and you will see when we taste together that the red are naturally concentrated so if we oak the wines it could be too much. Do you see consumers actually wanting less barrel, less wood? Yeah I think so yeah. Young people they don't care. They tend to look for wines that are more easy to drink. Back at the guesthouse we start the tasting and two wines immediately stand out. I love the Saint-So but it's not Appellation Saint-Chinien but whatever. If you watch the channel you know I'm a huge Carignan fan. This is really really nice Carignan. Meaty, full of Mediterranean herbs, big, round, fruity enough for most people to enjoy but definitely complex enough. 100% Carignan and the vineyards are over a century. 1907, 1911 nearby. The potential of the terroir you can go to the 100% Saint-So, the 100% Carignan and then you will see the others. Very good. Are you on retainer fee from Martin? No but I really love the wines. Fabien goes on and on about these wines because uh Martin is his friend so I have to tell you the truth. They so... I'm kidding. Wonderful, round, easy to drink, super approachable. Saint-Chinien guys I've been super impressed with today. The wines are really really well priced. Just above his estate Martin has some old vineyards that are close to 400 meters in elevation. The views up here are stunning but I want to sneak in a little snack. Martin says three euro per grape because these are really old vines. He's over there so I'm gonna eat it. So the skins are pretty thin, a lot of juice, a lot of acidity. That's six euro right there. Why is Saint-Chinien a great place to produce great wine? So yeah Saint-Chinien is special because of the duality of terroir and because people here kept the really old vineyards like this one. It's making really interesting grape even more with the altitude. You get the balance between the concentration of tannins and the freshness. It's really good and I think it's a wine shape for the future. People want everything nowadays. They want good wines, well concentrated but still drinkable and today I think we are we are capable of doing those wines. So what you get for the price in terms of price quality is really high here in the Appellation. People think it's glamorous life but it's often us rushing from place to place in the morning right? Look at my face, I'm not a morning person like yesterday. What do you think the top most consistent Appellations for red wines are in the Languedoc? Saint-Chinien, Terrasse de l'Arzac and Fogère and if I would go very niche I would go definitely to Mont-Perroux which is nearby. Deep in the valley we stopped by one of Fabien's favorite spots for a little picnic. Fabien's taking me to drown. We set up and get eating. Jambon persillé. It's a specialty made of pork and a lot of herbs, onions and a lot of parsley. He had parts from the pig so you get a bit of neck, a bit of the tongue, a bit of the nose. Here you got classic rosette. Good quality, not a lot of fat and then little goat cheese from around here and to pair with it cornichon for sure. This episode's like pork-a-rama. Look at here, it's like you're on holiday 24-7. Just on the river we noticed something. Well the stream takes you. Let's make a little bet and see if any of these kayakers take a spill. Okay, wait for it. Oh well. Terrasse de l'Arzac is high and one of the coolest Appellations in the Languedoc. Today we're meeting Renaud, a young passionate producer. So you have problems with the pigs as well? Yes. Can you feel it? 10 kilowatt. We start with his rosé made from the grape. It's mixed in Grenache and Duranson Noir. Another day at the office. This beefy rosé makes it up to the top of Renaud's vineyards as we take in the views. Domaine de l'Arzac is a new estate but it's definitely one to keep your eye on. I am a huge fan of rosé darker color. Oh they're having so much fun over there with a little bit of tannin. A quick tour through some of the vineyards before we head to the estate. Domaine de l'Arzac is certified organic for both wine and beef production. The property is a humble place but one that brims with energy and charisma. Renaud currently produces less than 5,000 bottles a year in this space. Not bad for a farm. He's working on converting it to a cellar. I think it's actually pretty cool. We head down to the cellar to see a couple of M4s and sip on Ferrosac's entry-level red which is this base cuvee. The Syrah with 40% Grenache is really good. What I want in Syrah, I don't want it to be too fat. I want it to have acidity. These chewy tannins. And I want Syrah to have almost this blood orange type of acidity which this has. A little bit of meatiness and peppery. When Syrah is really good it can be really addicting. Out in the courtyard Renaud has guests who stop by to pick up some wine. It's cool up here which makes it a perfect place to snack on some Renaud's beef products. Starting off with Carpaccio. Outstanding. But the beef terrine is what really blows my mind. Half-life in France. Let me finish it. Delicious. What a slab. What a slab. Now on to the top red wine which is 60% Grenache and 40% Syrah. How many points you give? 92, 93. Easy. More in the coming years definitely. In the evening Renaud has something special planned for us. Need much to be happy. Just good food and good wine. Renaud is cooking us dinner which includes three different cuts of steak. Ham that we call in French which is here in the middle of the animal. Then you have Larigny which you would translate by spider. So spider steak. This one is more here. The next one in French is basically some flank steak. It's not local but I'll never turn down a good champagne and It's good. How long has it aged for? He doesn't know but he knows it's good. I thought Tom was an AOC cheese. It's just the name of the cheese but it's not an appellation. Blood sausage on the right and garlic sausage. While dinner's being prepared I have an epiphany. Just stumbled upon the best pairing in the world. Tongue, this sheep cheese from Larzac and vintage champagne. Oh it's so good. Even like a good parmesan or a good Conte or you know it all depends. Like it needs to be mature cheese. With the Savoy cheese the champagne tastes like honey. You like cheese? ------- love it. And if you have cheese, rarely have red wine. You go for white wine, matured white wine, sweet wine or good bubbles like a nice champagne. Okay enough with the cheese. We're here to taste the beef. Okay which one should I taste first? Larigny. A lot of connective tissue. It's almost like carpaccio. It's the same as carpaccio. This is hanger or flank. Yeah. My favorite cut. Yeah but it's so tiny piece always. That's really... Which cut do you like the best? Three of them. The Anglais is the best. The texture is crazy. It's my baby. We've had some wonderful red wine so far but Masta Domas Gassac takes it home for us. It was founded by the late M.A. Guibert who is the star of the documentary Mondovino. We meet M.A's sons Basile and Samuel. Basile takes us up to the vineyards of the estate. Masta Domas Gassac is one of the wineries that showed that great wine could be made in the Languedoc and Basile tells me about what happened in the 80s after a big wave of publicity. So when this arrived we sell everything. My father is like wow it's amazing the success. We don't have enough vines. We need to deforest the whole valley. My mom who said you arrived here you jump out of the car you saw the stream the Gassac stream you saw the the wilderness of the place. So why do you want to destroy that? We head back down to the cellar. How many people do the final blends? It's good. God is doing the Mother Nature is doing the final blend because we harvest everything and 20 minutes from the vines then we bring it straight to the up there. What arrives here and what enters the cellar is perfect. For example this year we have a lot of frost and normally Chenin Blanc is quite a high part of our blend. It's 20%. This year is going to be 10% and that's Mother Nature. The cold weather that comes from the Larzac cold wind makes Domas Gassac an amazing place for winemaking and Emil Peno was saying what you want in the last two months of the harvest the slowest maturation possible but slowest means not too fast or not too slow because not too slow then you have blocage. It's harvest time and the cellar is getting prepped and cleaned. What do you think? I like the cellar smells good cool place. The estate is known for its flagship red and white which are both unique blends and we get a sneak peek of the 2021 Blanc. Even the fresh pressed juice super complex super complex and crunchy right? Domas Gassac is very Bordeaux style Cabernet but the non-Cabernet we tend to do short maceration 7-14 days max. We don't want power we want fruit we want the smile we want the music from the south. In the barrel room Samuel lets us taste the 2020 red from the barrel. We get rid of the sediment because there is no filtration in the red. How long usually does the reds spend in oak? 12 to 16 months depending on the vintage. Beautiful wine beautiful cellar all in. The barrel and the tank samples were good I'm excited to taste from bottle. We start with two vintages of the white wine which is a crazy blend of Aminio from Madeira Armenia Albariño, Phalangina. Chilar is from Armenia yeah Albariño, Phalangina mostly Viognier Petit Vincent, Chardonnay, Chenin Blanc. Gorgeous honeyed. Do you mind if I do a product placement? I'm gonna put it in but that's funny. So we are a very simple family and yeah what's the drinking window on this? I think 90% of people who like Tomas Gassac white drink it in the first two three years and they get six bottles and that's it. Much older you have a very aristocratic white. It's everything I like about white you have that gritty texture. You get a nice acidity but it's not Onto the red which is also a crazy blend of Cabernet Sauvignon Merlot, Cabernet Franc, Petit Pinot Noir, Barbera Nobile, Dolcetto. Did you see plavets? Oh and plavets! Holy crap! Smells awesome! Levery, cherry. So I'm a very bad guy because I started with 17 and then we did 19, 18 and then we're gonna go 16. More professional. And then 11 you know. You know first growth Bordeaux better than I do. Yeah. So can you compare that? No. It's better to some. You have more complex it's not only Cabernet so you get more complexity more freshness. It's more approachable. It's 35 euros. You better buy this than the first growth. It's subtle. You've got the smooth tannin. You've got the smile. Oh mama. You like it? Mama. What I haven't tasted but just on the nose. Hey man. And you can tell it's Cabernet taste but there's something like a little twinkle on the eye because of all the different grapes. It's like you got a nice cote de boeuf properly cooked and so many nice ingredients around. Best pairing ever with the Moussaka is roasted lamb. You make Moussaka down here? I think of Moussaka as a Greek dish. He's asking if we do Moussaka. We're in France. We cook everything. We rule the world of cooking guys. This was my third time in the Languedoc and the region constantly takes me by surprise. Not only is it one of France's most dynamic wine regions it's possibly the most scenic. When it comes to reds you'll find everything from good inexpensive table wine to bottles that can compete with the great wines of the world. I'm a little sad to leave this slice of France but I know I'll be back. There are more adventures to come with Creative Fabien. Stay tuned to the channel for more.