This is a fine "Grand Terroir" from Bertrand, if lacking in charm and elegance and instead offering a certain brooding rusticity that one might expect from the region. A Syrah-Carignan-Mourvèdre blend, it features a dense core shaped by those three southern French staples, heavy on black pepper, funky cured and roasted meats, earth, dried herbs, and old leather. The fruit is dark and dense -- blackberry, blueberry, plum -- but this is a wine that seems old, dusty, and stale until with time it offers up a nice acidic streak of zesty cherry and redcurrant. But the roughness remains throughout.