Les Douze 2001 Fitou

I had been planning a lovely summery white this week but Europe is so miserably cold, wet and almost wintry that I feel a dense, warming red that is very obviously the produce of a wonderfully hot summer is miles more appropriate. (Apologies to those of you reading this in sultry Bangkok or Bangalore.)

This is an entirely new wine from one of the most enterprising, and well-situated, co-ops in France, Les Producteurs de Mont Tauch in the village of Tuchan, high in the rugged hills of the southern Corbières in Cathar castle country. This is not one of the sleepy wine producers entirely out of touch with international consumers that are compromising France's future as a wine exporter (see France discovers non-French wine in purple prose).

In fact this very wine was dreamt up specifically to appeal to Mont Tauch's most important export market, the UK. The packaging is modern and stylish and the concept (you have to have a concept at this price level) is presumably that it will appeal to sports-loving wine drinkers. It's a blend, supposedly, of the best lots of the local grapes Carignan, Grenache and Syrah, from 12 (douze) particularly good growers who supply the co-op. Each of their names is listed down the long dark label, as though they are team members. Thus, we travel down the bottle from Michael (mysteriously not Michel) to Jean-Luc.