$165 “The Robert Louis Stevenson” Wine-Aid Package – 6 Bottles of French Red Wine from the Slopes of the Cévennes Mountains (All Included and Delivered)

“Wine is bottled poetry.” — Robert Louis Stevenson 

Introducing The Robert Louis Stevenson, a $165 Wine-Aid package that includes six bottles of ripe and lush red wine from the appellations of Faugères, Terrasses du Larzac, and Saint-Chinian — appellations that all lie in the dramatically craggy foothills of the southern slopes of the Cévennes mountain range. The price includes tax and delivery, as well as a 15% discount. We will also honor a 10% discount on any bottles you might wish to add to the Wine-Aid package. 

Robert Louis Stevenson was a Scottish poet, playwright, novelist, and travel writer. While he is most famous for his adventure novels like Treasure Island, one of his earliest published works was a pioneering classic of outdoor literature, Travels with a Donkey in the Cévennes. The book recounts Stevenson’s 12-day, 120 mile, solo hiking journey through the southern French mountain range in 1878. Here’s a taste:

“There is a romance about all who are abroad in the black hours, and with something of a thrill we try to guess their business. But here the romance was double: first, this glad passenger, lit internally with wine, who sent up his voice in music through the night; and then I, on the other hand, buckled into my sack, and smoking alone in the pine-woods between four and five thousand feet towards the stars.”

Included in The Robert Louis Stevenson Wine-Aid box are two bottles of each:

1) Domaine Léon Barral (Faugères 2016) Regular Price $36

An arid landscape of scrub-covered ridges and windswept stone outcrops, Faugères is known for its dry and crunchy metamorphic schist that forces the roots of the vines to penetrate deeply in search of moisture. Didier Barral farms about 75 acres of vines using biodynamic practices.  This bottle is a blend of 50% Carignan, 30% Grenache, and 20% Cinsault from vines aged 40 to 70 years old. After fermentation, the wine is aged for 2 years in cement and stainless steel cuves. The aromatics are joyous with black cherries, cocoa, herbs and flowers. A sip is filled with fruit yet nimble on the palate, elegant even, with a finish of sun-baked stone.

2) Le Clos du Serres “Les Maros” (Terrasses du Larzac 2015) Regular Price $31

In 2006, Béatrice and Sébastien Fillon purchased 37 acres divided into 15 parcels near the town of Saint Jean de la Blaquière. The diversity of the soil across all of their parcels includes schist, sandstone, pebbles & shingle, and red ruffes (deep deposits of sandstone accumulated some 265 million years ago and exposed by erosion). “Les Maros” is a single parcel of schist west of the village. The wine is a blend of 60% Grenache, 20% Cinsault, and 20% Carignan from the coolest vineyard area of the estate. The wine is matured for 12 months in concrete vats. Weighty and more concentrated, the flavors tend toward black fruit and licorice with a mouth-filling texture and lengthy finish.

3) Domaine Mas Champart “Causse de Bousquet” (Saint-Chinian 2017) Regular Price $25

Back in 1976, Isabelle Champart and her husband Mathieu began cultivating vines on a humble 20 acre farmstead. Mathieu tends to the vines, Isabelle makes the wines, and this small slice of the Languedoc is their life. “Causse de Bousquet” is a blend of 60% Syrah, 20% Grenache, 10% Mourvèdre, and 10% Carignan mainly from a broad limestone plateau at close to 1,000 feet in elevation where the hard rock extends through to the surface. Aromatics of red cherry licorice and herb-dusted stone hover above the slightest hint of grilled meat. A mouth-filling sip bellows of ripeness yet the wine never turns flabby. Indeed the lengthy finish seems to release energy as it remains. 

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Posted on 2020.05.12 in France, Wine-Aid Packages, Languedoc-Roussillon