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2023 Pays d’Oc Cabernet Sauvignon “Les Traverses”
Château Fontanès
When I was an undergraduate at a university with a historic basketball program, members of the team would emerge from time to time to play pick-up games against us mortal humans on a court tucked among the dorms. These were thrilling occasions not only for the students playing with and against them, but also for most everyone from the surrounding residence halls, who relished the chance to watch some of the best young talent in the country play with unbridled flair. I couldn’t help but think of this when I recently tasted Château Fontanès’s Cabernet Sauvignon. Like the D1 athletes, when freed from the high-stakes spectacle, hype, and expectations of competitive and widely publicized games, Fontanès’s Cabernet showed that this normally stately grape can display an exceptionally fun side recalling the verve and soul of its roots. The joy it embodies is so pure that it makes you wonder, why isn’t more Cabernet made this way?
—Tom Wolf
Wine Type: | red |
Vintage: | 2023 |
Bottle Size: | 750mL |
Blend: | Cabernet Sauvignon |
Appellation: | Vin de Pays d’Oc |
Country: | France |
Region: | Languedoc-Roussillon |
Producer: | Château Fontanès |
Winemaker: | Cyriaque Rozier |
Vineyard: | Planted in 1970, 5 ha |
Soil: | Clay, Limestone, Marl |
Farming: | Organic (practicing) |
Alcohol: | 14.2% |
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About The Producer
Château Fontanès
About The Region
Languedoc-Roussillon
Ask wine drinkers around the world, and the word “Languedoc” is sure to elicit mixed reactions. On the one hand, the region is still strongly tied to its past as a producer of cheap, insipid bulk wine in the eyes of many consumers. On the other hand, it is the source of countless great values providing affordable everyday pleasure, with an increasing number of higher-end wines capable of rivaling the best from other parts of France.
While there’s no denying the Languedoc’s checkered history, the last two decades have seen a noticeable shift to fine wine, with an emphasis on terroir. Ambitious growers have sought out vineyard sites with poor, well draining soils in hilly zones, curbed back on irrigation and the use of synthetic fertilizers and pesticides, and looked to balance traditional production methods with technological advancements to craft wines with elegance, balance, and a clear sense of place. Today, the overall quality and variety of wines being made in the Languedoc is as high as ever.
Shaped like a crescent hugging the Mediterranean coast, the region boasts an enormous variety of soil types and microclimates depending on elevation, exposition, and relative distance from the coastline and the cooler foothills farther inland. While the warm Mediterranean climate is conducive to the production of reds, there are world-class whites and rosés to be found as well, along with stunning dessert wines revered by connoisseurs for centuries.
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Kermit once said...

Kermit once said...
I want you to realize once and for all: Even the winemaker does not know what aging is going to do to a new vintage; Robert Parker does not know; I do not know. We all make educated (hopefully) guesses about what the future will bring, but guesses they are. And one of the pleasures of a wine cellar is the opportunity it provides for you to witness the evolution of your various selections. Living wines have ups and downs just as people do, periods of glory and dog days, too. If wine did not remind me of real life, I would not care about it so much.
Inspiring Thirst, page 171