Réserve de Villecours Cabernet Sauvignon 2007

Description
Cabernet Sauvignon is of course the Number One grape of Bordeaux, of the Médoc in particular. It is renowned for its deep colour, minty blackcurrant fruit and firm tannins that enable the best wines to age for decades.

Most wine regions in the world now grow the grape, in a bid to ape the great wines of Bordeaux. It is not a native of the Languedoc but, with the rise of single varietal vins de pays in the 1990s, so plantings of it increased.

Réserve de Villecours is an exclusive, oak-aged cuvée made for us by Benoît Blancheton - one of France's most notable winemakers and grandson to one of the country's finest coopers. Benoît has made wine in some of the country's best vineyards including Clos de l'Oratoire in Châteauneuf-du-Pape, where his wine was awarded an impressive 93-points by top critic Robert Parker.

He has sourced the grapes for this wine from two outstanding Languedoc sites. La Clape is a hill close to Narbonne, that used to be an island just off the coast. The land mass shifted so that it's now connected to mainland France. It has perfect, steeply sloping, elevated vineyards with excellent exposure to the sun, as well cooling ocean breezes to draw out the ripening process.

Grapes from here tend to have excellent concentration. The other parcel of fruit hails from Villeveyrac, close to the renowned 'First Growth' estate of Daumas Gassac.

Concours National des Vins de Pays Primeurs - Paris 2008, France

Réserve de Villecours Cabernet Sauvignon 2007 is available in the following cases: