Garrigue

Garrigue is one of those unmeasurable things in a wine - it is a sense of terroir, the characteristics of the land where the wine originated. Almost as if you can taste the land itself. The Chateau Saint Germain, Coteaux du Languedoc, 2002, definitely has that earthy feel in the mouth. This wine proudly displays "unfiltered" on it's label - this is one of the reasons the wine tastes earthy and herby. Very aromatic nose, it smells "dirty". A full bodied, grabs you by the throat wine, lots of flavour (if you're into dirt). Interestingly, orange peel also comes out. The only bad thing about this wine is that I didn't decant it and I kept getting chunks of stuff that felt like soft bark in my mouth...they really didn't filter it. This is a GOOD wine, interesting, a slow flavourful sipper, very different from new world wines but still nice to sip while bundled up in front of a fire in this -20C weather. Solid value at $15 a pop.

Cheers!