26/11/2021
A magnumific present from a friend! Thank you Mark C-E
If you wish to buy a good bottle of wine and don't know much about the region in France there are five signs to look for. Otherwise you go to the supermarket and its pretty label time. No good!
Here's what to look for from the bottom up.
Firstly, look for a big dimple. This means its restaurant quality wine so the sommelier can serve it one handed and demonstrate the bottle. Flat bottomed bottles are never destined for a restaurant.
Then, moving up, look for "mis en bouteille" au chateau, domaine, à la propriété etc, without that it was taken off in a tanker to some centralised bottling plant... rrrk.
Then look for the appellation biologique, normally on the back label, indicating organic wine (the speciality of Bandol, Bellet and Cassis wines) which are all hand picked, no insecticides or soil nutrients and the barest minimum of sulphites, 3 parts per million, or one teaspoon per 7500 bottles. Hence no hangovers!
Moving up look for a real cork which allows the wine whatever colour, to evolve. With white and rosé you can look up the bottle to see the mottling of the cork. With red you can't through the dark bottle but if there is a cork you will see two pinpricks in the top capsule which allows the cork to breathe. Plastic won't have this.
Lastly is the cap on the cork itself... the first letters are the code for the vineyard and the last is the postcode, ie 33 for bordeaux, 83 for provence. In-between you can get N or E (buying other grapes) etc but if you see "Recoltant" it's the highest tax but it means that EVERYTHING that went into the making of that bottle of wine happened on the property, from seed to grape, from bottle to label, everything. Look for Recoltant!
So if you get lost amongst the avenues of bottles, these five tips in France will give you a 95% chance of a terrific bottle of wine.
