The Tannat grape

During the winetasting at Magnus Wijnen in Kontich where I tried out all mono-cepage wines I could find -- in order to practice for my Tastevin exam next month -- my eye was caught by a wine from Cotes De Gascogne that features the Tannat grape.

Image by Agrofilms via Flickr

As it was the first time I heared this name my curiosity spiked. Later on I searched the web to find more and learned that this grape is currently considered the national grape of Urugay (I didn't even know they made wine) and its origin is in the Basque area in france where the Madiran area is the AOC that is known for this grape.