2017 Domaine de l'Ostal Grand Vin Minervois La Liviniere Languedoc 750 ml

This is one of the most carefully crafted, luxurious, silky, and outright delicious wines we’ve had from the South of France. From Jean-Michel Cazes—the proprietor behind $150+ Bordeaux Château Lynch-Bages—it boasts all the richness and character you expect from wines grown in the high sun and garrigue of France’s Midi, with a fine structure and polish that makes it stand apart.

We’ve long said that the most affordable bottles from the world’s great producers—bottles without the prestigious names on the labels but from the same talented people—represent the best values in the wine world. That’s especially true for wines from distinctive terroir like you find in Minervois La Livinière. An appellation whose higher elevation and stonier soils set it apart from the rest of the Languedoc, it’s easy to see why Jean-Michel Cazes would want to set up shop there: It’s been called the “best-kept secret” of Minervois by The Guardian and the “dark horse” of the Languedoc by Decanter.

Broad in mouthfeel yet precise in structure, Cazes’s 2017 Grand Vin has a richness akin to the Southern Rhône, a muscularity and spice reminiscent of Northern Rhône, and a precise structure that is La Livinière’s alone. Composed mainly of Syrah cultivated in warm, clay-sandstone soils, and accented with Grenache Noir and Carignan, it’s got huge, ripe, powerful aromas of blackberry and black cherry spilling over the rim of the glass. Generous on the palate and firmly defined, it vividly evokes the breeze-cooled, rugged land at the foot of Montagne Noire—a property handpicked by the sage of Château Lynch-Bages.