2020 Celliers d'Orfee Cuvee Sextant Corbieres 750 ml

When you’re having lunch at Restaurant Le Trivalou, within the medieval walls of Carcassonne, there’s one thing you must order: a bubbling bowl of cassoulet, replete with crisp duck legs and sausage. 

Wine, well, that’s a tougher choice. Faced with too many options from Languedoc villages like Corbières and Minervois—two hotbeds of outstanding values that rival the Rhône—we were wise enough to put ourselves in our server’s hands. 

We knew from the moment he poured the deep purple-black 2020 Orfée Cuvée Sextant Corbières that we’d made the right choice. This bottle demonstrates why Corbières is truly THE epicenter of red wine value in Southern France, offering more pleasure-per-dollar than you can get in the Rhône. 

The aromas jumped from the glass: black and red cherries, blueberries, and notes of fresh lavender. On the palate, the wine was full of raspberry compote, chocolate, bacon, and violet flavors, all supported by a beam of acidity and tannin that helped cut through the rich flavors of the food. Reminiscent of a top-flight Châteauneuf-du-Pape, it was simply perfect with the meal. 

A blend of old-vine Syrah and Carignan grown on a diverse terroir of limestone, sandstone, clay, this wine shows the benefit of the Cers, a wind also known as the Narbonnais. It’s a very dry wind that is closely related to the Rhône’s famed Mistral, and it serves the vineyards around Corbières by chasing away clouds and rain in spring, giving the vines ideal conditions to push out beautifully concentrated fruit.