Paloma 2023 - Es d'Aqui

Jean-Louis works from an unassuming cellar below his house in Moulin-neuf, close to Limoux. Trained as an oenologist, he worked at large commercial wineries in the mid-noughties, at one point managing a cellar that produced 160,000 bottles a year. After tasting the wines of his friend Antony Tortul of la Sorga, Jean-louis was convinced to walk a different path, and established his own label the following year.

Predominantly a micro-negociant, Jean-Louis scouts fruit from remote and isolated vineyards across the South-West, from Gaillac out to Saint-Chinian and further afield, as well as working closely with respected growers like Remi Poujol. A varying portion of his output every year comes from his own vines nearby, depending on the vintage. Bottling under the label Es d'Aqui, meaning "from here" in Occitan, Jean Louis reminds us that each of his wines is a singular expression of where they come from. Producing about 10,000 bottles a year, some cuvées in tiny quantities(sometimes as little as 400-800 bottles), Jean-louis' wines catalogue the breadth of intricacies that define southern wine.

Adissan sits in the flat heart of the Hérault, the cradle of Clairette du Languedoc, home to one of the oldest AOCs in the region, recognised in 1948. Archaeological digs around the village have turned up evidence that people were making wine here in antiquity. The terroir developed on lacustrine limestone and Quaternary terraces, composed of quartz, flint, and calcaire. Those ancient lake-bed stones (rather than marine) drain fast but hold moisture in their fissures, buffering vines through the oven like Mediterranean summers.

The two grapes here are both, in their own ways, thoroughbred workhorses. Carignan arrived from Spanish Aragon in the 19th century and within a few decades it accounted for roughly 52% of the entire Languedoc-Roussillon vineyard. It was the engine of the Midi's industrial wine era, drought-resistant, enormously productive, and largely unloved by critics for most of the 20th century. On poor limestone soils at low yields, though, it shows a completely different face with dark wild fruit, detailed structure, a brightness of acidity, and a garrigue sensuality. Ugni Blanc had an equally unglamorous reputation, planted everywhere, valued mainly as a high-acid blending grape and for distillation, rarely taken seriously on its own. It is now only rarely found in France's Mediterranean wine regions.
Planting them together was once completely ordinary. Before varietally-labelled commercial wine took over, growers across the Languedoc planted mixed fields and harvested everything at once. This was a practical approach, white grapes macerated alongside red ones soften the tannins, lift the aromatics, and help stabilise colour. The result was something like what we find here, evocative and vital while remaining true to its mediterranean roots.

Grapes: Ugni Blanc, Carignan

Region: Ariège, France