Purchased this wine at Whole Foods for $8.99 a month or two ago, and since then I've seen the price drop to $6.99. A write up by the cases of bottles talks about how this wine has been a crowd pleaser in the past, and that only a limited amount was bottled (I think this particular one was 3,000 cases, but I don't recall the number exactly).
This was a non-complex wine, sort of a few notes of black fruits, but beyond that, I didn't get much. Easy drinker, I finished it quickly so my notes aren't that extensive.
Carignan hasn't really been a stellar grape in terms of quality in the past. It's more known for its quantity, which is why it's part of France's "wine lake" or overproduction of wine every year. In fact, it was France's most produced grape until 2000 when it was surpassed by Merlot.
The Aude region is in south-central France, between the Mediterranean Sea and the Pyrenees mountains.