CYPRUS GOURMET: France and the New World wines

Pays d’Oc is world’s biggest producing

It took a long time for the French wine industry to wake up to the fact that there were winemakers in countries other than France who could make good wine. The writing was on the wall in the 1970s when California wines beat the best French in blind tastings. But the large scale producers of every day wines still kept their heads in the sand and did very little as the USA, Australia, Chile and other New World wines started taking their markets away. These countries had something Bordeaux and Burgundy did not – sunshine, and they could put this into a bottle to offer young, fresh, fruity wines with good alcohol levels.
Eventually, France woke up and realised that in the south of the country there was a more hospitable climate where fruit-driven wines could be made in quantity and it was to this region (now the largest wine producing area in the world), the Pays d’Oc, that growers, winemakers, negociants and opportunists flocked to get into the act, and in not many years millions of litres of wine were flowing. Some good, some so-so and some not good at all. The bad has largely gone, and the region now offers very drinkable wines, often made in large quantities, at reasonable prices, which compete well with similarly-priced wines from other countries. One of the producers was Famille Castel (not apparently linked to Castel Freres, but you never know!)