One of the most warmly received wines we offered in cahoots with The Wine Company last year was the 2011 Domaine de la Jasse Vieilles Vignes, a beautifully structured, Bordeaux-style red from the Languedoc.
Readers, and no few Speccie staff and contributors (including your humble correspondent), lapped it up – so I’m delighted that Mark Cronshaw, the Wine Co’s operations director, has nabbed a special parcel of 2012 Domaine de la Jasse Tête de Cuvée Rouge on our behalf, making this a very enticing offer indeed, at a one-off, Spectator-readers-only price.
Domaine de la Jasse lies some 15 km from Montpellier in the heart of the Languedoc – one of France’s wine regions of the moment – and its name comes from the shelter and the shade (known in the local dialect as jasse) provided by the estate’s century-old plane tree.
Winemaker Bruno le Breton is something of a maverick in that he chooses not to follow the restrictions of the local appellation’s regulations, preferring instead the freedom provided under the wider, less stringent Vin de Pays d’Oc rules. This allows him to use unsanctioned varieties such as Cabernet Sauvignon and Merlot as well as approved ones such as Syrah and Grenache.
He is assisted in his efforts by no less a figure than Patrick Léon, familiar to Spectator readers as partner to Sacha Lichine at the rosé-producing Château d’Esclans in Provence and as the former winemaker at Château Mouton-Rothschild.
The 2012 Domaine de la Jasse Tête de Cuvée Rouge is made from 100 per cent old-vine Cabernet Sauvignon, matured for 12 – 16 months in French oak. The resulting wine is a cracker – dense, concentrated and fleshy with deep, dark, ripe black fruit, liquorice, chocolate, vanilla, spice and an earthy hint of dried porcini mushrooms.
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