Wine: Re-discovering the south of France

Back to southern France again this week, as I find myself enjoying the wines from here more and more.

The fact that we have the highest wine taxes in the EU (by a long measure), means good value regions like Languedoc-Roussillon are everywhere in our off-licences and need to be explored.

The relatively stable climate here makes grape growing a little easier and young winemakers can find treasured plots of old vine carignan and grenache and old terraces to replant. Warm dry summers and mild winters also make this a very pleasant place to live and I’ve featured a couple of UK- and Irish-born winemakers that now live here such as Domaine la Sarabande and Domaine Begude, both imported by O’Briens.