LANGUEDOC Domaine Ollier-Taillefer (902431)

Domaine Ollier-Taillefer
2015 La Grande Réserve
Languedoc, France
Faugères (importantly, the highest zone of Faugères)
 
 
Item# 902431
Case of 6
 
90pts Wine Advocate
 
Certified Organic
 
Grapes:  Equal parts old vine Carignan, Grenache, Syrah
 
Tasting Notes:  A potpourri of Faugères’s aromatics-black olives, thyme, sage, sea salt-- and the sense of licking a black stone. Bursting with pure finesse.
 
When critics speak of mistakes or faults in Languedoc's wines in general terms, the finger points first to oak, the misuse and overuse of which wipes out so much that is special about Languedoc wines—namely, the fragrant aromatics, and the sense of garrigue and soil from the terroir. The second thing they point to is brettanomyces.

There’s neither oak nor brett in the Grande Réserve. Nary a splinter nor a cell. Aged on its fine lees during a nicely relaxed élevage, in this wine you have the potpourri of Faugère’s aromatics—its black olives, thyme, sage, sea salt, and on the palate the sense of licking black stone. This is what Languedoc and Languedoc alone can do so well.