2019 Michel Chapoutier Marius Rouge Pay's d'Oc France 750 ml

Small price. Huge name.

Here’s why we’re always on the lookout for that magic combination: Because established names like Michel Chapoutier have all the pieces in place. They’ve got top growers on speed-dial. They’ve got crush pads and barrel rooms and bottling lines ready to rock, not to mention a network of exporters, importers, and distributors waiting in the wings. That means they have to do but two things in order to produce a bargain bottle with which few can compete: secure great grapes, and apply their hard-won expertise.

One deep sip of 40-time 100-point winemaker Michel Chapoutier’s Marius Rouge Pays d’Oc proves our point. Bursting with ripe red fruit, dark chocolate, black pepper, and forest floor, it’s a lip-smacking, sun-ripened red that does its world-famous winemaker proud—and boasts a price that will make any bargain-hunter perk up. 

The man behind scores of perfect wines from the greatest terroirs in France, Chapoutier crafts this any-and-all-time blend of Syrah and Grenache in his second home of the Languedoc-Roussillon region. And that first sip convinced us to grab every bottle we could.

We’ll never encourage you to claim a case ONLY based on the price, though. You should buy this beauty in bulk because it’s the kind of wine you’ll find yourself opening without even thinking about it. With a case of Marius Rouge at hand, everything becomes an occasion: movie night, dinner on the deck, catching up with college pals. It will all call for a glass of this delicious red. 

No one’s got the talent and terroir covered better than Michel Chapoutier, whom Robert M. Parker, Jr. anointed a “young genius” when he first headed from his Northern Rhône home to the Roussillon. Now, two decades later and a slew of 96+ point Roussillon wines later, Chapoutier has as thorough a knowledge of the Pays d’Oc as anyone, and he’s parlayed it into a bottle that over-delivers in every way. 

Named for Michel’s great-grandfather, the 2019 Marius Rouge is a powerful and concentrated blend of Grenache and Syrah, both of which thrive in the clay and calcareous hillside plots of the Pays d’Oc. After harvesting the Grenache early to preserve its sweet, red-fruited freshness, and allowing the Syrah to ripen to phenolic maturity, the grapes were vinified separately, racked multiple times, then aged for five to eight months in stainless steel vats before bottling. 

The result is a bottle that bursts with Chapoutier’s 100-point expertise, and boasts a bargain price tag that will elicit disbelief from the friends with whom you share it. This is the definition of a generous wine, and it’s priced to share widely.