Domaine Lalande Petit Verdot 2005

The rarest, darkest 'Black Red' around - spicy black fruits and soft vanilla oak

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Tasting Note
Description
Awards
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Tasting note
Colour - Very deep, almost opaque.

Aroma - Ripe blackberry, damson with a hint of violets.

Taste - Deep blackberry, raspberry and mulberry with floral notes over rounded, firm tannins.

Type:Still Red Wine	Country:France	Appellation:Oc VdP
Grape Type:Petit Verdot	Drink Before:December 2009	Body:Rich and Flavoursome
Alcohol:13%	Bottle Size:75cl	Bottle Code:38722

Serving suggestions
A full, weighty red, with dark black fruits with a bite of acidity to balance. One to put with roast beef, venison perhaps, steak and kidney pie or hearty vegetarian dishes. Drink by end 2008.

Description
Petit Verdot is a small-berried (hence the petit) grape that's used only sparingly in top flight Bordeaux. Sparingly because, besides its dark colour, deep black fruits and spice, it also lends a great bundle of tannins. And you only want those in small amounts. It's almost unheard of to find a wine made entirely of the grape. However, in the warm vineyards of the Languedoc, this variety can be ripened so well, that it loses its hard edge, yet none of its fabulous character. It's also proving quite a success in the New World, in Australia and South America, but still only accounts for a tiny percentage of plantings.

Pierre Degroote of Domaine Lalande was the first to plant this grape in the Languedoc. His estate lies about 30 kilometres northwest of Carcassonne, bisected by the Canal du Midi. Indeed, the architect of this grand waterway also designed the original house on the estate.

Pierre is himself a wine enthusiast, but leaves the winemaking proper to the Australian Richard Osborne, who has been in the Languedoc so long, he now counts himself as a local. The Petit Verdot vines are all on south-facing slopes on the premium Côtes de Malpère AOC, the soil of which is littered with galet stones, like you find in Châteauneuf-du-Pape. These help ripen the grapes too.

Andrew Jefford - STWC Magazine April 2007 2007, United Kingdom