Georges Vigouroux Cahors Pigmentum

Overdesigned label and absurdly bright orange fake cork aside, this is decent cheap Cahors. (The website itself is a marketing excrescence: http://www.pigmentum.fr) Georges Vigouroux, "créateur de grands Malbecs" (http://www.g-vigouroux.fr/site/), sure seems to be trying hard to establish what Cahors might be today, what with all the various chateaux and labels and all, and this wine fits into the lower end of his Cahors firmament. It's good. There's a nice dusty, fruity nose, there's ample acidity enlivening the wine and imparting …

Great dark purple color, cherry, licorice, smoke leading the way to tobacco, spices, and earth flavors. Soft tannins and a pure finish of mineral and smoke. Nice bang for the buck. JD88+

Purchased for $11. Wow, this is a tannic beast. I even Vacu-vinned half the bottle and threw it in the fridge... and it was still tannic two days later. The nose showed promise with hints of blackberry and plum... with some old world charm of earth and mineral. However, I couldn't quite get any of that on the palate because the tannins ripped the first layer of skin off the inside of my mouth. This didn't really open up after …