If you make wine, your label is your calling card. It says exactly who you are and creates an expectation in the potential buyer of what they will find inside the bottle. A great label will just sell itself! That’s why I always shake my head at wine labels that are just, well, lame. C’mon, guys! Your kid, for example, should not be designing your wine label.

Unless, of course, it’s eight-year old Gabrielle, the daughter of Amélie and Jérôme d’Hurlaborde. Gabrielle represents the next (fourth) generation of the family business and the clever mind behind the very appealing label of Le Petitou, an absolutely ravishing, very surprising red from hard up against the Massif Centrale of the Languedoc, about 25 miles from the Mediterranean. Gabrielle’s mom, Amelie (nicknamed the masculine version Amile by her grandfather), was actually a designer of wine labels herself in the southern Rhône Valley before she and her brother Sebastien inherited a small parcel of old Carignan and began making their own wine from it.

At first, Amile was assisted by Montpeyroux’s well-known vigneron Sylvain Fadat, who along with her father (the village’s popular, longtime mayor), helped her gain the trust of growers, which, in turn, allowed her access to buy vines when their owners retired. She now tends 14 separate parcels, with three more being planted, doing nearly all of the farming herself, with some help from her brother and from her husband Jérôme. The vines she farms average over 40 years, apart from the 1930s-era Carignan that is the base of Le Petitou.

Since the beginning in 2007, she has worked without pesticides, herbicides or synthetic fungicides; in recent years, she’s also been farming biodynamically. All the better to leave something behind for young Gabrielle and her brother Paul, the inspirations behind Le Petitou, a wine as cheerful as its label. Amile says it was originally designed to be a rosé, but tasted so much better as a vibrant, easy-drinking red. That old Carignan plays a major part in the blend, adding a bit of wild southern French garrigue to a party started by fresh, fruity Grenache and spicy, peppery Syrah.

It’s an absolutely delightful red you can pop and pour to your heart’s content in the backyard with just about anything- burgers, chicken, ribs, even grilled salmon. It would like a little chill too.

What a fun wine, and I’m sorry I said all that bad stuff about labels designed by kids…..