Côtes de Provence Cabernet Sauvignon 1996 – Domaine Richeaume (Henning Hoesch) – Alc. 12.5% was amazingly elegant and Bordelais; blind, there is no way that I would have guessed this as coming from Provence - definitely a good bourgeois claret from Médoc. The aromas were of fine red fruit and minerals with a delicious touch of barnyard and the palate showed medium body with a cleanly singing fragrance, silky mouth-feel, decent resolved structure and good length. I think that the cool 1996 summer, which tended to produce excessively lean and acidic Grenache and Syrah, may have helped to give such an uncharacteristically non-Provençal elegance to the Cabernet; 16/20 +
Richeaume has an idyllic location close to Montagne Sainte-Victoire, much painted by Paul Cézanne. I remember asking Hoesch how he got away with a Cab in the Côtes de Provence appellation; he smiled enigmatically.