Crushed & Cured
Mas des Brousses, Cleo, Terrasses de Larzac, France, 2022
Dark-berried juiciness and berry-leaf fragrance. This is a doodle of happy, plashy, minted-dark-chocolate, liquorice-pencilled fruit stencilled with a scribble of satin tannins
Brousses translates as bush, or brush; this is, literally, the farm in the garrigue. Amidst the rolling scrub-covered hills around Puéchabon and the pebble-strewn terrasses near the Hérault river lie the domaine’s plots of vines. Tall Géraldine Combes (from a family who have inhabited Puéchabon, near Gignac, since 1525) tends the vines whilst husband Xavier Peyraud, grandson of the legendary Lucien Peyraud of Domaine Tempier, is the winemaker. What stands them apart from other estates in the Terrasses du Larzac is the high proportion of Mourvèdre, the vines coming from Xavier’s carefully transplanted cuttings from Tempier in Bandol. They have been organic in practice for years (with 2019 the first certified vintage) and now largely eschew sulphur in winemaking.
Region: Terrasses de Larzac
Vintage: 2022
Grape Variety: Mourvedre, Syrah, Grenache
ABV: 14%
Size: 750ml
Producer: Mas de Brousses