DH was buying a few wines this week and upon entering the store saw
'lots' of Languedoc. He commented upon this to the manager. The
manager commented that wines of Languedoc were like Gallo wines.

I just read that this region is the biggest wine region in the world
and produces a third of France's wine. He could have said that
instead.

At any rate, there were lots of them, and inexpensive.
Dee

Mike Tommasi wrote:

> It is a shame really that Languedoc wines are being marketed as cheap
> Vin de Pays almost as an answer to what France sees as "new world wines".
>
> Because in fact where Languedoc excels in in high QPR top quality wines
> and some top end stars. True, these get lost in the sea of wine that
> comes from this French version of Puglia.
>
> Being fortunate enough to live a 2 hour drive from Montpellier, I can
> tell you that the best of Languedoc is an order of magnitude better than
> a good Cotes de Provence.
>

Speaking purely as a greedy consumer, I am somewhat grateful that the
world at large doesn't recognize the quality of wines from the
Languedoc. It's a lot like the status of the Rhone valley 20 years ago,
when you could pick up a world class wine for 1/4 to 1/10 the price of a
cru classé Bdx or Burgundy. For instance, I think that the wines of Ch.
La Roque, D'Aupilhac or St. Martin de la Garrigue are all great examples
and still very reasonably priced.

Mark Lipton

p.s. Thanks for putting together something on the Languedoc. Don't
stress out about when it gets done.
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