Fronton, Le Roc, and Sheep!
In Kermit Lynch’s excellent book, Adventures on the Wine Route, he writes about not bothering with wineries which store their wine in tanks outdoors. You’ll have to excuse my selfishness for not taking the time to look up the page for a citation: whenever I open that book, I compulsively read it for several hours.
In addition to outdoor storage tanks, I find sales reps, glossy pamphlets, and tasting-room swag or chotskies to be a sign of . . . insincerity. So you can imagine my relief when we were greeted by a hungry herd of sheep at Château le Roc in Fronton.
Like much of the French Sud-Ouest, the Fronton appellation is comprised of rural, piecemeal farms and tiny villages far removed from the egotism of Bordeaux to the north and the sophistication of Toulouse just to the south. Fronton's red wine, based on the little known Négrette varietal, is in fact the wine most typically consumed in Toulousain cafés, and as we discovered, makes a fine match with the local version of cassoulet served with (what else?) duck confit and spicy garlic sausages. But Négrette seemed to show far less rusticity than the Duras and Fer flavored wines of neighboring Gaillac, and certainly lacked the abrasive tannins of Madiran's Tannat. Négrette, if anything, seemed more akin to a more deeply colored Beaujolais, or in the hands of Frédéric Ribes, an especially explosively aromatic style of Red Burgundy.
By "explosively aromatic," I am of course referring to the whole-cluster style of Pinot Noir produced at Domaine Dujac, Domaine de l'Arlot, DRC, and Cristom winery in Oregon. I’ve had an on-again-off-again love affair with this style over the years (currently an on-again relationship). My prior discontent with this style was caused by how it easily overwhelms terroir, but it nevertheless produces something intensely pleasurable in certain wines of certain vintages.
My visit to Frédéric Ribes' cellar at Château le Roc shed new light on this technique. The wines I tasted were obviously made in this style, yet displayed remarkable delineation from one wine to the next. Ribes' ultimate expression of Négrette comes in the form of Le Roc's Cuvée Don Quichotte, a 50% Négrette and 50% Syrah (the appellation stipulates the blend only needs be 50% Négrette), a wine of intense perfume and character and great aging potential. After a full day of tasting in Fronton, Négrette was a proven noble varietal and Le Roc its benchmark producer.
These are remarkable wines from an area we'll only occasionally feature in our offers as we tend to focus on more northerly appellations. That said, I find it impossible to overlook sunshine wines of quality and distinction such as these. If you'd like to purchase Château le Roc and other unique wines of terroir, I invite you to join our client list.
