Chateau Ollieux Romanis Corbieres Boutenac Cuvee Prestige Rouge 2022 750ml

This is only our fifth Languedoc-Roussillon red wine to find itself in the Best in Show selection, and the first from the cru of Corbières-Boutenac. The blend of this dark black-red wine, typically for Corbières as a whole, is 40 per cent Carignan with 30 per cent Syrah, 20 per cent Mourvèdre and 10 per cent Grenache, and it’s a successful one. From first sniff, you can gauge the wine’s unusual complexity: sweet, beguiling but far-from-simple fruit offset by the herbs-and-stone austerity of the rangy Mediterranean wilderness in which it comes into being. There’s soft liquorice, too, and a touch of tart asperity which again evokes the place itself. The flavour gives you a deep plunge into that wilderness; Languedoc’s best wines are never easy drinking. Spend time with the wine, though, and you’ll find it rewarding and complex: a great though quietly spoken gastronomic red from a multi-millennial vineyard biotope. (Best In Show) – DWWA 2025