It’s been more than two years between vintages for me, so I am especially happy to be able to at last report on the wooded 50:50 cuvee of Mourvedre and Syrah made in collaboration with importer Bobby Kacher that is Mas Carlot’s 2006 Costieres de Nimes Les Enfants Terribles. The 2005 represented a hard act to follow, but this wine is up to the task, and as such represents a truly remarkable value. It smells of cassis, black raspberry preserves, and rare, grilled beef. While intensely fruited, this dense, mouth-filling cuvee displays no superficial sense of sweetness, but rather a great purity; subtle but insistent fruit skin tartness; along with concentrations of juniper, mint, fennel and sage. Deep toasted nut and red meat notes well-up and crest with the wave of herbal and black fruit concentrates in a superb finish that betrays not a hint of its alcohol as heat. This should deliver enormous pleasure for at least the next 3-4 years. Importer: Robert Kacher Selections, Washington, DC; tel. (202) 832-9083

——J.C.(12/15/2009)—— 91