Alain Brumont Château Bouscassé Vieilles Vignes Madiran AC

The wine consists of 97% Tannat and has been aged in new barrels, which give it a special depth. Produced from the oldest plots and the best land of Bouscassé, it is an exceptional reference from the house of Alain Brumont. The tannins are strong and creamy, with an endless and fresh finish. Notes of basil, candied fruits, spices, and pepper are set against a backdrop of black fruits. It is a very harmonious wine, aged for 14-16 months in new barriques. Serve this extraordinary wine with fine mushroom dishes, as well as hearty stews, game specialties, and hard cheeses.

In the southwest of France, the Romans already cultivated wine in Madiran; Benedictine monks from Bordeaux brought the small-berried Tannat grape in the 11th century. Today, the highly unconventional winemaker Alain Brumont primarily cultivates this ancient indigenous grape variety on 180 hectares. In the best plots of the terroir, in Montus with its rocky, steep southern slopes, in the Boucassé plateaus with ironstone and manganese soils, and in Gascony with its limestone subsoil. Brumont has managed to tame the highly astringent Tannat, known for its high tannin content, and processes it in new barriques into elegant, discreet, and extremely long-lasting wines with robust fruit.

The Sud-Ouest region encompasses the wine-growing areas of southwest France, excluding Bordeaux and Cognac. It includes the areas around Bordeaux, Gascony, and the Basque Country, and is strongly influenced by the nearby Atlantic climate. In Haut-Pays, largely the same grape varieties are grown as in Bordeaux, namely Cabernet Sauvignon, Merlot, and Cabernet Franc. However, in the south, one can find one of the most interesting collections of local grape varieties in all of Europe, including names like Abouriou, Baroque, Duras, and Petit Courbu.