What goes up in the wine world does not necessarily stay up for long. Languedoc-Roussillon, still hailed as France’s new frontier of wine, is a sad case in point. My own recent tasting notes show that you have to kiss a lot of frogs before you find a single prince among southern French wines.

Things are going to get worse. The French have already fallen for the argument that sticky, vanilla-scented chardonnay and sweet, oaky, Ribena-styled cabernet sauvignon (apeing California and Australia), along with old-fashioned earthy, tannic reds, are an improvement on the plonk they used to produce in the Midi. But the truth is, there are more exciting, cheaper, terroir-led wines from other sources. UK sales of Languedoc-Roussillon wines fell by almost ten per cent last year, and Britain is the Midi’s second most important export market. Given that Languedoc-Roussillon is the world’s largest single wine-making region, producing a third of the French grape harvest, this is disastrous for the Midi’s growers.

No one would deny the improvements to the Midi over the past 20 years, including grubbing up dud vines, planting better ones and virtually halving yields to 16 million hectolitres. I also think that simplifying labels to include grape varieties and remove confusing appellations and quality levels such as vin délimité de qualité supérieure can only be a good thing. Ditto the use of oak chips for humble vin de pays and vin de table level wines. But the news that an all-powerful, all-controlling French wine authority combining the independent Languedoc, Roussillon and vin de pays groups has been formed and has dreamt up the new inclusive Sud de France sunshine logo gives me the heeby jeebies. An obscene 15 million euro (£12 million) has been spent on Sud de France alone, money that could have been better spent searching for more pockets of old, low-yielding, terraced, hillside vineyards. If the South of France doesn’t change its ways soon, there will be a sea of bland, New World-mimicking Midi bottles at the bottom and a handful of exceptional, distinctively Gallic, terroir-led producers at the top.

The few in the middle that get my vote include: Gérard Bertrand’s rich, creosotey grenache and syrah-based Roussillon red 2004 Tautavel Réserve (Waitrose, £7.99); 2006 Domaine de Felines’ Picpoul de Pinet, with its exotic floral spice (Waitrose, £6.49); and the restrained, stone fruit-charged 2006 Limoux Chardonnay from Domaine Bégude (Waitrose, £7.49 until May 13). Top vins de pays d’Oc include Gérard Bertrand’s lively 2006 Classic Dry Muscat (Tesco, £5.49) and Paul Mas’s 2007 Vignes de Nicole, an elegant coffee bean-spiced cabernet sauvignon and merlot blend (Majestic, £8.49, or buy two for £6.99 each).

More of the same please, Midi.

jane.macquitty@thetimes.co.uk

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