Stéphanie Ponson and Frédéric Porrot met at enology school in Montpellier in the late '90s and, after some years of apprentice work at various wineries, decided to pool their resources (some inherited vineyards from her, some acquired vineyards from him) and found Mas Des Agrunelles.

This wine is 100% carignan, an ancient varietal probably indigenous to Aragon, just over the Pyrenees from the Languedoc in northern Spain. In France, carignan was used as a bulk-wine varietal for a long time, and dominated the Languedoc in particular. More recently it's been included in fine-wine blends with grenache and syrah, and now (although still rarely) varietal wines on its own, like this one.

This 2020 has lots of red floral aromatics, violets and roses, bing cherry, raspberry, a hint of dusty herbs, and finished with loads of baking spice and really fine tannins, and a touch of bitterness on the finish. Decant for more open flavors (it can be real chewy like red licorice), and I like to drink this with a cellar chill and a hot meal of fowl or gamey meats, or summer squash and mushrooms. Good pizza wine too!