2020 Racine Pinot Noir, IGP Pays d`Oc, Bruno Lafon & François Chamboissier

Although it just tips over the £10 mark (it’s £11 a bottle if it’s bought as part of a case of 12 bottles), London merchant Haynes Hanson & Clark’s southern French find is the best-value pinot noir I’ve tried in a long time, and one of the best versions of the variety I’ve ever tried from the south of France. Admittedly, neither of those categories are especially competitive: good pinot noir tends to be expensive wherever it’s made and the variety is ill suited to the heat of many Midi vineyards. Still, that’s not to lessen the achievement of winemaker Bruno Lafon, who has managed to bring all the finesse that you find in the best of the pinot nor made in his native Burgundy to grapes grown in the relatively cool corner of the Languedoc in the hills of Limoux, (i)n the process fashioning a delicately fragrant, gentle, fine-textured red.