Carcassonne Hotel de la Cité Wine Tasting

Carcassonne Hotel de la Cité Wine Tasting – LOVE That Languedoc Ep. 32

I just did an OUTSTANDING tasting in Carcassonne today at the Hotel de la Cité. Restaurant manager and maitre sommelier, Georges Gracia pulled out all the stops and showed me a sampling of some of the bottles they had open at La Barbacane. This is the hotel where the Queen of England stays and Sting and your rich uncle. It’s located in the middle of medieval castle ramparts. Awesome.

When you see a pristinely preserved Vin Doux Naturel that is older than me… that is why restaurants used to charge 3-5 times wholesale price! Because they kept and cellared the wines perfectly and found a way to present them that was interesting.

The wines:
C de Centeilles 2008, Domaine Clos Centeilles, Vin de Pays Côtes du Brian
Clochers Lucien Fanjeau 1991, Limoux (wasn’t an AOC until 1993, domaine hard to determine)
Cuvée 1908 2008, Abbaye de Fontfroide, AOC Corbières (note the vintage is 2008. The name of the wine is 1908)
Domaine du Mas Blanc 1977, Domaine du Mas Blanc, AOC Banyuls

See also:
Patricia Domergue – Owner and winemaker at Domaine Clos Centeilles, sur le Minervois et Minervois La Liviniere.
Jean Michel Parcé – Owner and winemaker at Domaine du Mas Blanc. I can’t find a website for him or his Domaine, but he is pretty open online and you can email Jean Michel Parcé
Abbaye de Frontfroide – This is a historical site and draws a lot of tourists. They just redid the website and the wine produced there is integrated into the main site. However, I don’t see the wine mentioned in the English version of the site. Sorry :-ç

The varietals in C de Centeilles:
Araignan Blanc
Riveirenc Gris
Riveirenc Blanc
Grenache Gris

Tags: abbaye, Araignan, arignan, carcassonne, cite, cité de carcassonne, clochers, clos centeilles, cotes du brian, English, georges gracia, hotel de la cité, languedoc, limoux, lucien fanjeau, Riveirenc, riveranc, riveranque, Riverenc, tasting, Toques et Clochers, wine

English | Ryan O'Connell January 14, 2010

4 Comments

By Julia Hubrich Plô Roucarels, January 15, 2010 @ 1:22 pm

What a lucky guy you are! It was a old wine, thanks for the compliment, it is exactly my age! So am I old?
Have a nice week-end and continue to taste this good wine!
By Ryan O'Connell, January 15, 2010 @ 3:42 pm

OH gosh, I’m in trouble now. Let me say 2 things. First, wine doesn’t have a very high life expectancy around me. A wine makes it more than ten years, I feel like it’s had a full life. Second, I would have never guessed your age if you hadn’t just posted it on the Internet You and Julien seem like a spry young couple that will not grow old for a long time!

Thanks for reading though, as always
By Todd Martin, June 22, 2010 @ 7:28 pm

I an happily surprised to hear someone else talk about freshness. I love that quality in the wine. It seems, to me, to be a mark of quality in some portion of the winemaking…
How lucky you are to be living in, and drinking the best of France.
Sante
By Ryan O'Connell, June 23, 2010 @ 2:45 am

Hey, Todd! It’s especially true in this region were you can get a lot more of that freshness in the small microclimates that are elevated a bit from the plains of the Languedoc. Thanks for leaving some feedback!

Love that Languedoc

Languedoc Wine Blog