89/100
Given that their coastal facility on the Etang de Thau puts them cheek-by-jowl not only with the vineyards of Picpoul de Pinet but with a wealth of seafood and seafood restaurants; and that they had established generic bottlings of Languedoc red and rose of exceptional quality-price rapport, Hecht & Bannier’s white 2010 Languedoc was a natural development. But instead of it’s being by appellation a Picpoul de Pinet – which, as they rightly note, is not exactly (sadly) an internationally-known mark of quality – they took the liberty of playing around and found that an admixture of 10-15% Roussanne (from the Garde) brought floral and texturally rich dimensions to the luscious melon, pear, and fig fruit and saliva-inducingly saline minerality of the Picpoul. I think I’ve just captured the essence of this 2010 – which I tasted the day it was bottled – and you should require no further inducement, though I can tell you that I took the bottle for a spin in a local restaurant and found its versatility almost as prodigious as that of its rose counterpart. There was a 2009, but it showed so much less well when tasted alongside that I have not published a note on it, and – even allowing for the obvious superiority of 2010 in white and for the added know-how of the team in year two – I would recommend relishing this 2010 over the next 9 – 12 months. US$14
