Marcillac: Domaine Laurens Le Dernier Lion

First cultivated by the Romans, the South West is one of France's largest wine-producing regions, encompassing a vast and varied area to the west of (but not including) Bordeaux. Its local rivers, such as the Garonne and Dordogne, once played an important role in transporting the wines to market, though having to pass through Bordeaux and its protective trade laws left the region long overshadowed by its famous neighbour. Today, the South West is celebrated for its sweet, dry, and sparkling whites and its robust reds, made from an exceptional diversity of local grape varieties rarely found elsewhere. Its varying climates and elevations produce some genuinely distinctive and characterful wines.

A small, characterful appellation in the Aveyron in South-West France, granted AOC status in 1990, though its few producers have been making wine here since the 6th century. Once produced to meet the needs of the local population - from clergymen to agricultural workers - the region has gradually revived, helped in recent years by growing tourism. Its wines are built around a single distinctive grape, Fer Servadou, known locally as Mansois (and also as Fer or Pinenc), which produces deeply coloured, rustic reds with firm structure and a signature peppery, red-fruit character. Like much of the South West, Marcillac remains very much 'un vin à découvrir' - a wine to discover.