France Report: Prioritising premium

Good value’ is a tag that follows the wines of Languedoc and Roussillon around. While it’s undoubtedly not the worst thing that consumers can associate with a region, it can serve to dampen the ambitions of makers of more premium wines. As Justin Howard-Sneyd MW, winemaker in Roussillon and regional chair for Languedoc-Roussillon at the Decanter World Wine Awards, puts it: “Good value can be a trap. Chile struggled with that. People see it as good value and therefore don’t see their premium wines as something worth spending money on.”