L'Ostal Cazes, Estibals, Minervois

A very pleasant Languedoc Rousillon wine. Not complex but good with food and has some spice and red fruit and some garrigue but not overly bitter. Great with dessert somehow. Atlantide restaurant on Silver sea Moon Alaska cruise. Drank 17 Giscours by the glass for main course and still enjoyed this, it was kind of a low key wine like some Chateauneuf du Papa wines in character.

Gut aber nicht sehr gut. Fruchtig.

Meh - on offer in O'Briens for €21 - better value to be had. The wine looks garnet colored. The legs are slow. There is no sediment in the bottle. It smells like raspberry, blackberry, red currant, fig, mineral, bark and vanilla. The body is medium/full. The wine has leathery texture. The wine finishes medium. The wine has low acidity.

Retail 18€. Restaurant 35€. 60% Syrah, 20% Grenache, 20% Carignan. Under cork. Another arduous day for me. It began in the rain, in Florac, in the middle of the Cévennes, where I had to rise early to catch some breakfast (the French do a *lot* of things right when it comes to food, but breakfast is not one of them--give me some scrambled eggs and a bit of meat any day) and then stuff my bike back into its carrier …

Starts off with a lot of lavender on the nose. Then garrigue dominates with an earthy background. You can really feel the syrah. Balanced and silky palate with a medium finish.

Deep purple. Forrest and garrigue on the nose. Spicy and sweet palate but also juicy, soft and velvety. Pretty long finish.