After a short but intense Oktoberfest this weekend, I’m now back to posting my remaining summer reds tasting notes. This 2008 Poudre d’Escampette from Casot des Mailloles is another bottle I bought in Paris at Caves Augé. I asked them for easy drinking but not too simplistic red wines from the South of France and this was one of their warmest recommendations. Casot des Mailloles is an organic winery located not far from the Spanish border in Banyuls-sur-mer; they work all their vineyards by hand on steep slopes and relie somewhat on word-on-mouth as marketing technique (there is no computer and no website for the estate - an interesting blog article on the winery can be found here). But let’s check on the wine which is a cuvee of mainly Carignan with some Grenache and Syrah. Nice, dark purple color nearly fading into pink, a little blurry which is fine with me. Nose has a slight nail polish tone but is mainly showing intense raspberry perfume which nearly reminds me of some modern Spanish wines. On the palate also very intense fruit, raspberry jam, but at the same time it appears quite balanced with slight acidity and also with enough structure through a backbone of fine grained tannins. Finish is medium long. All in all again a satisfying red wine, maybe a bit too much on the fruit for my taste, but at the same time it was still far away from seeming kitsch or artificial. 86 points.