Some of you may remember a time when you couldn’t walk around a supermarket wine department without coming across a bottle of fitou. It was cheap, easy to pronounce and just the kind of hearty red that hits the spot on a chilly autumn evening. In recent years, however, fitou has all but vanished from the shelves, supplanted by sexier southern reds such as minervois, Pic St Loup and, of course, the ubiquitous malbec.
I wouldn’t have given much thought to it myself if a friend hadn’t brought a bottle of Château de Nouvelles Gabrielle 2012 (14.5% abv) to a recent lunch where it knocked the socks off all the other wines on the table. By coincidence, that same wine then turned up at a tasting a couple of weeks afterwards, where it also stood out. “It’s the best fitou I’ve tasted,” says David Schroetter of Santé Wine Imports, who still has a few bottles left in his shop in Wells, Somerset, at £16.95, before the 2013 turns up at the end of the month.
Fitou is the oldest appellation in the Languedoc and has two distinct terroirs: one by the coast, the other in the hilly hinterland around Tuchan. Like other Languedoc reds, it features syrah and grenache with a good slug of carignan, which lends the wine a degree of rusticity and also adds to its individuality; many producers are also increasingly using mourvèdre these days, which gives their fitou a pleasing exotic edge.
Frustratingly, most of the other fitous I enjoyed at that tasting are not available in the UK, among them Domaine de la Rochelierre’s dark, sensual Noblesse du Temps, which has been placed in the Sud de France Languedoc Roussillon’s top 100 (as well it might with an RRP of £30). But if you fancy finding out what fitou is capable of these days, try Katie Jones’ generous, lush Domaine Jones Fitou 2013 (£13.50 The Wine Society; 14.5% abv), which would be well worth building a cassoulet feast around.
As for the cheap and cheerful fitous of yore, several supermarkets don’t currently list one at all, and while the enjoyably swiggable Mme Claude Parmentier Fitou 2014 (12.5% abv) isn’t unreasonably priced at £7.99 at Waitrose, I’d be inclined to wait for a special offer or one of the store’s 25%-off across-the-board wine discounts before loading up.
If you’re a Wine Society member, give the ballsy Origines Fitou 2014 (14.5% abv) a whirl at £7.95 – it’s from one of the region’s most highly-regarded producers, Domaine Bertrand-Bergé. But let’s have more options, please: bring back fitou.
