Producer: La Bancale
Region: Roussillon, France
Grape Varieties: Grenache
Viticulture: Organic
Category: Red
Size: 750ml
Transplants from Northern France, Bastien and Céline met as teenagers. Both lovers of nature and of working with their hands, they moved to the Languedoc in their early twenties to study and work in agriculture. Bastien studied viticulture in Montpellier and they both worked at Domaines throughout the Languedoc and the Roussillon. Early on they developed a passion for the native varieties and old bush vine vineyards of Southern France. It was their love of old vine Carignan that led to apprenticeships with Jean-Louis Tribouley and Domaine de l’Ausseil, in the village of Latour-de-France at the eastern end of the Agly Valley.
The focus at La Bancale is expressing the Domaine’s unique terroirs, and the quality of the Roussillon’s indigenous grape varieties. Bastien and Céline feel this is best accomplished by making wine as naturally as possible, meaning meticulous organic farming and a hands-off approach in the cellar.
17 year old vines. years old. Orchards at 280 meters altitude. Terroir consisting of calcareous black slate. Harvested entirely by hand. Whole -cluster fermentation for 6 days in neural vats, only the use of vineyard own yeasts. The grapes are pressed and transferred back to neutral vats for the completion of fermentation. 9 months maturation in neutral vats. Only at bottling a very low dosage of SO2 added. Unfiltered.
