Reds from France are Mike Tipping's choice for this week's Tipping's Tipples.

My trusty PowerBook laptop computer ceased to be so trustworthy this week. And so my Wednesday night ritual of crunching Tipping's Tipples into said laptop has been rudely halted.

Fortunately we humans are resourceful creatures, I've picked up pen and paper instead. Technology isn't such a great thing anyhow.

Have you ever come across a computer that can tell good wine from bad? If you ever do, send it to the Languedoc region of France. The Fitou appellation for instance, where it can spin down it's hard drive and file open a bottle or two.

By a strange coincidence the trio of wines in Tipping's Tipples this week are from the Fitou appellation. Specifically the latest works from the vignerons of the Mount Tauch co-operative.

The cheapest of the trio, Les Douze 2003, comes complete with thumbnail pictures of the 12 vignerons involved in it's production on the back label.

This would be very useful should you need to rendezvous with the wine makers personally. Otherwise I assume this is a modern design technique. The blend of carignan, grenache and syrah therein is worthy, if not sensational. Dark forest fruits and black cherry mingle with pepper, spices and some subtle tannins.

I'd rather spend £2.50 more on Les Quatre 2003. It's got the same grape variety blend as Les Douze but this wine is in a different league. Complex, smooth, full and chewy, there are liquorice, blackberry fruit flavours and ample amounts of spice and black pepper. It finishes fantastically with cloves and tasty oak notes on the palate. Slurp, slurp, yum... nice tannins as well.

Mont Tauch's top of the range wine, Terroir de Tuchan 2003 is 60 per cent syrah and 40 per cent carignan. This one's complex too but much lighter in style than Les Quatre.

The syrah part of the equation is aged for one year in new oak barrels. It opens out really well with vanilla, blackberry, chocolate and clove flavours (again). There are red apple notes in the mix and very nice it is too.

It has all been trs Franais in Tipping's Tipples recently however, I'll be trying something more New Worldly next week.

Les Douze 2003, £6.49 at Majestic and Sainsbury's

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Les Quatre 2003, £8.99 at Waitrose

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Terroir de Tuchan 2003, £9.99 or two for £15 until December 6 at Thresher and Wine Rack

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Updated: 16:35 Friday, November 12, 2004