Charles Cros 2024

Hailing from southern France’s sunny Languedoc region, Charles Cros represents the revitalization of a historic winemaking cooperative. Bursting with wild red- and black-fruit flavors, it’s produced via carbonic maceration, a winemaking technique that the operation hadn’t employed for more than four decades.

Used to produce fresh, fruit-forward, soft-on-the-palate wines that are instantly approachable, carbonic maceration—or maceration carbonique, as they say in Languedoc’s commune of Fabrezan—sounds technical and complicated, but is really quite simple.

Whole bunches of grapes are placed in a sealed vessel that’s then filled with carbon dioxide to remove any oxygen. In this environment, the grapes collapse in on themselves and essentially begin to ferment from the inside out, producing alcohol. It’s a very traditional way to go about making wine, and one that the co-op behind this bottle relied upon 40 years ago. Somewhere along the line, however, they modernized, and began producing wine in the manner most others were using.

Flash forward to today, and carbonic maceration is again in the spotlight, becoming more and more popular with emerging producers and wine lovers, alike. So when a new winemaker—Quentin Fischer—joined the co-op, his first manner of business? Bring back the carbo.

This is your chance to taste the delicious results. A blend of Carignan, Syrah and Mourvèdre, it offers expressive black currant and wildly herbaceous aromas that lead to a palate of black cherry, pomegranate and red plum. For ultimate enjoyment, we suggest chilling it just a bit before serving.