Consolation wines were the brainchild of Andy Cook, who lived and worked in St Andrews for many years before moving to New Zealand to study the art of wine making. After a few years honing his skills there, he settled in the picturesque town of Collioure in southeast France. This is Basque country, rugged and beautiful, just like the man himself. Andy now has a purpose built, modern winery which was built in partnership with legendary Roussillon producer, Phillip Gard of Coume de Mas. The winery always has several projects on the go, but it’s focus is Mas Cristine, an old estate which produces classic Cotes de Roussillon wines. The Consolation wines are predominately made from the older vines within the Mas Cristine estate. The range fluctuates to showcase the best parcels each year and production is very limited. It is an electric range of wines which are bottled as single varietals to show off the grape variety and explore the potential of each grape variety each year.

Mas Cristine is an old estate which produces classic Cotes de Roussillon wines. They are blends of several varieties, not mentioned on the bottle, which is perhaps unfashionable and confusing for the customer, but the wines are terrific and offer tremendous value. Blends bring about complexity and flavours which are hard to achieve in single varietal wines. As the old saying goes, they are greater than the sum of their parts.