Cotes de Malepere

[Winot]

Just got back from a week near Mirepoix in southern France, south of Carcassonne and north of Limoux in the Cotes de Malepere sub-appellation.

This was the fifth time we have been to southern France to stay in a villa in an interesting and good-value wine region. Previous visits were to Vaqueras/Gigondas, Minervois, Les Baux de Provence, and the region northwest of Montpellier near Mas Daumas Gassac.

Someone else had booked this trip and I hadn't done much research. I was surprised therefore to find that the appellation uses primarily Bordelais varieties (a minimum of 50% merlot with the balance usually being the two cabernets and perhaps something like malbec) rather than the southern Rhone varieties of syrah/grenache/mourvedre which are found in the minervois region for example just to the north.

The result was usually like drinking cheap claret. I wasn't a big fan.

It seems increasingly fashionable to use Bordelais blends in the south in general, started I suppose by Mas Daumas Gassac/Domaine trevallon et al., but as far as I know these are outside the strictures of the AOC.

Does anyone know why the Cotes de Malepere AOC decided to go for bordelais grapes?

[endless autumn]

I think the Cotes de Malepere are on the watershed between Atlantic and Mediterranean weather systems/ soil types and so it makes sense, in a way, to grow Atlantic (ie Bordelais) grape varieties. They just happen not to do it very well.