Je Négrette Rien - a wine post

I was recently lucky enough to be in Belgium for a few days on work purposes (yeah right!), during which I had a five minute supermarket sweep of an unassuming corner shop for a bit of choccie, waffles, and a quick butchers over the wine selection.  Only an imbecile or a lifetime subscriber to the London Review of Books would fail to have his eyes drawn to this

What a treat! (it was 5 euros if I remember correctly).  One of the great mysteries of the Universe is why is it that one sees a bottle with Négrette in 24 point capital letters all over the front label only marginally more often than a pile of rocking-horse pooh? Why oh why oh why?

Now - first up it's only right that one points out what Négrette isn't.  It isn't Pinot Noir, it isn't Cab Sauv or one of the other great varieties.  But - if anyone, and I mean anyone, tells me that the Négrette is an also ran, I will, and I mean will, challenge them to a duel, and they won't live to Négrette it. [I promise that's the last pun in this post]

The name is the great clue, it means black.  This is wine with ageing potential (medium term rather than long term I'm told).  As its name suggests, this is wine on the rather heavy side of medium bodied, and the great treat is that it is simply heavenly on the old Roman: wild flowers - sometimes honeysuckle bizzarely enough, and very ripe berries.  And, in this day and age where so many wines are nothing more than alcoholic grape juice, it has one of THE hallmarks of a great wine: Character.  It is very much like people from Toulouse itself; confident, attractive, they don't give a fig what's going on in the rest of the world because Toulouse is the centre of the cosmos and, finally, they just go on doing their own thing.  It's also, very importantly for a skinflint, reasonably priced.

So why can't we get this juice in Blighty?  Where to start. There are all sorts of stupid reasons which revolve around ignorance which I won't bother with.  There are also more serious reasons. People, unfortunately, do like characterless alcoholic grape juice that can be opened and drunk straightaway whereas 100% Négrette  really has to be opened in advance;  the above bottle was tighter than a Tory Budget for more than two hours after opening.    There's also a question of price; 5 euros on the continent always inexplicably and mysteriously turn into £9.99 in the UK, and however marvelous Négrette might be, an orange drinks voucher would be a bit borderline for this tipple.  But with the Euro rapidly collapsing surely here's an opening for a wine merchant with a bit of gumption.  Get in that white van, get down there, and tweet me when you get back.  It's not difficult.

Let's hope it happens.  It happened, praise the Lord, with Picpoul de Pinet (couldn't get if for love nor money in Blighty 15 years ago), let's get going with the Négrette, preferably before the next celebration of a British Monarch's Diamond Jubilee.