I can't remember the last time I had a wine from Saint-Chinian. I can't even remember picking one up in a wine store and putting it down in favor of another wine. In fact, the name, though not unfamiliar, is buried so long ago in my past that I had to look it up again tonight to reaquaint myself with whatever I previously understood. And I learned, in case you dear reader are in the same boat as myself, that it's from a small parcel in the Languedoc of about 20 villages that produces about 16 million bottles per year, of which 90% is red wine. The grapes are carignan, syrah, grenache, mourvedre and cinsault.
What I have in my glass is a wine with dense strawberry fruit, heavily smoked meats, pepper and quite a bit of that baby fat tuitti fruitti-ness some very young red wines (in my experience, usually containing syrah) can have and which blows off after a year or three in the bottle. After an hour in the glass the fruit starts to recede slightly and leave the acid holding the bag, but all this seems to portend well for a wine one might wish to leave alone for that day in the near future when that baby fat blows off and the wine has put on some weight. I don't think it's a long-termer, but it could last three to eight years from vintage date and it will be a real treat to see what comes of it: especially for $9.89 a bottle. Oh, the full name: 2007 Domaine Rimbert Les Travers de Marceau, Saint-Chinian.
