Domaine de Cambis, Caudomato Rouge 2023

Get to know: Domaine de Cambis, Caudomato Rouge

Eighty-year-old Carignan on 400-million-year-old schist - a Saint-Chinian Berlou red wine from a village of 219 people.

Tasting Note

Give it air. Straight out of the bottle it holds back, and twenty minutes later it turns generous - spicy, voluptuous, wide across the palate - without ever getting heavy with it. There is grit underneath the fruit and real volume to the whole thing, and the two sit comfortably together. It is the wine on this list you keep coming back to, peeling a layer off each time, the way a good album works. Open it early, or pour the first glass and leave the bottle alone for half an hour.

Top food pairings:

• Braised puy lentils with smoked paprika and roast garlic
• Slow-cooked lamb with olives
• Coarse country pâté

Kate Says

"Give this twenty minutes to open up and it turns generous and spicy without ever getting heavy, with real grit underneath the fruit. Martin Perolari took the estate on alone in 2019 and had it certified organic within two years. This is the one you keep coming back to across an evening."

Producer Info

Domaine de Cambis work seventeen hectares on the Berlou hillsides in Saint-Chinian. Martin Perolari took the estate on alone in January 2019 - his parents Annick and Alfred started it in 2004 out of a village cellar - and moved fast on certification, with conversion beginning in 2018 and organic certification running from the 2021 vintage. Berlou is a schist village: south-facing slopes between 250 and 450 metres, Ordovician rock 400 to 500 million years old, looser and more free-draining than the clay-limestone to the south-east, so the vines have to dig. The appellation rules require at least 30% Carignan and hand-harvesting, and the wine cannot be released until December of the year after harvest.

Caudomato is an Occitan word - Martin's own explanation is that caudo means hot and mato is the garrigue scrub. It's a south-facing plot above 350 metres where summer temperatures go past 40 degrees, planted with Carignan about eighty years old. So the name is a description of the field."

How it's made:

• Carignan around eighty years old, from a south-facing plot above 350 metres
• Hand-harvested, as Berlou requires
• Held back until at least December of the year after the harvest, as Berlou requires
• Detailed winemaking information is not supplied by the producer for this cuvée

Good to know:

• Region: AOC Saint-Chinian Berlou, Languedoc, France
• Grape: Carignan, Grenache, Syrah
• Style: Red, still, full-bodied
• Closure: Cork
• Vegan: Not supplied
• ABV: 13.5%
• Vintage: 2023

Why we love it:

Berlou is one of the least-known corners of the Languedoc and one of the most distinctive, and this is the Languedoc red wine to learn it on. Old Carignan, ancient schist, and a grower who took the place organic within two years of taking it over.