The small winery, Mas Champart, was one of the first wineries to put the hillside town of Saint Chinian on the map far and wide. The region, which is both full of fertile flatlands and rolling hills is just southwest of Bezier on the way towards the regions of Minervois, Corbieres and Fitou.
Producers like Rimbert, Fonsalade and Canet-Vallet, as well as Champart, produce lovingly made, long living wines.
While most of the wine coming from the town is AOC approved grape focused, for years Mas Champart has made a small batch of an exquisite and very interesting Pays d’Oc red from a combination of Cabernet Franc, Carignan and Syrah. But in 2017 the story goes, they decided to make the wine with mostly the Cabernet Franc grape while still keeping a bit of the old vine Carignan in the final blend.
The 2017 Mas Champart Pays D’Oc is a peppery, silky, red cherry and blackberry scented and flavored red. It drinks like a Loire red that has met the Rhone Valley.
Enjoyable now, or in ten years time, this is a stellar example of what the wines of Mas Champart can be like.
And that’s why, the 2017 Mas Champart Pays D’Oc is today’s WineSiders’ Wine of The Day!!!
