2022 Demarrante Rouge
Maxime Magnon

“La Démarrante” is a blend of only Carignan, Grenache, and Syrah. It is terrific young and deliciously quaffable in youth as the suppleness of the texture here is irresistible.
• 50% Carignan, 30% Grenache, 20% Syrah
• 50-60 year old vines in sandy limestone and schist
• Aged in both cuve and foudre

For people familiar with it, most of the Languedoc produces wines of little excitement, much of the terroir is flat, with fertile soils that make for easy farming and high volumes of cheap, basic fruit for, well, basic wines that are destined for supermarkets. But, like anything great, nothing comes easy and thankfully there are some, albeit very small and isolated, secret nooks and crannies of exceptional terroir!

As you head west from the main tracts of flat vineyards along the Mediterranean and head inland, towards Spain and the Pyrenees, the altitude rises, the air is drier and cools in the evenings with wide diurnal swings, rocky outcrops surge from out of nowhere around each corner.

If you keep an eye out for it, you will see scattered about pockets of ancient and gnarly old vineyards, many of them Carignan. Like many places that are inhospitable to normal agriculture, the vine thrives. No topsoil exists, just fractured and decomposed schist rocks and bedrock. (see the pic above as an example of what I am talking about)

Today, we have some wines from just such a place, the Hautes Corbières. We have the new vintages from Maxime Magnon, who in 2002 found this special place full of abandoned old vine material. It became Maxime's life's work to nurse these vines back to life and make wines that reflect this special terroir.

The wines have soaring aromatics, with fresh, intense notes of red berry and cherry fruits, lavender/violet purple florals, soil, garrigue, and spice from the whole cluster stem inclusion. The struggle in these warmer regions is to shade the fruit and not let the sun overtake the growing process. The cooler vintage in 2021 made it easier on Maxime and the fruit and allowed the fruit to grow slowly and for a long period of hang time, optimal conditions for the growing season.

Magnon is from Burgundy and worked/studied under Jean Foillard, the legendary Beaujolais producer from Morgon. He practices whole cluster winemaking, with fermentation and aging in both steel and old French oak. He also counts as a friend and consultant the great Didier Barral from Faugeres. Didier is one of the other living legends in the Languedoc we offered late last year (here)!

• Certified organic, but also incorporates biodynamic practices
• Vines all planted in goblet style
• Farms area of Hautes Corbières, a sub-appellation within A.O.C. Corbières that borders Fitou, and sits at a higher elevation with very rocky terrain
• Vinifies using whole cluster fermentation
• Sulfur only used during bottling
• All wines are aged in second-hand, Burgundian barrels sourced from a producer in Chassagne.