Domaine Ampelous Minervois Derrière chez Marie 2020

This cuvée comes from Domaine Ampelous, in Caunes-Minervois, at the foot of the Montagne Noire, in the Aude. Its name evokes the vines planted behind the Mas de Sainte-Marie. The estate’s vineyard, covering some twenty hectares, lies on stony clay-limestone soils, mixing marble, schist, pebbles, silt and sand depending on the sector, under the Mediterranean climate of the Minervois.

The Carignan and Syrah are destemmed, then ferment and macerate for 28 days, an extraction that gives the wine its structure and firm tannins, particularly thanks to the Syrah. After malolactic fermentation, the wine is aged for 3 months in temperature-controlled tanks, without any time in barrel, then bottled.

This wine reveals notes of blackberry, blackcurrant, blueberry, violet, liquorice, black pepper, porcini and cocoa. The dark, deep colour opens onto black fruit and violet, lifted by touches of liquorice. The palate, supple and velvety, offers sweet spices and ripe fruit, before a long, easy-to-enjoy finish.

The cradle of wine culture in Western Europe, France owes its first vines to the Greeks of Phocaea, who settled around Marseille some twenty-six centuries ago, before the Romans spread viticulture along the Rhône and the Garonne and as far as Champagne. In the Middle Ages, Cistercian and Benedictine monks cleared the slopes of Burgundy and patiently mapped out the climats, laying the foundations of the notion of terroir. The 19th century brought the glory of the classifications, then the disaster of phylloxera, which wiped out the vineyards before they were rebuilt on American rootstocks; the creation of the appellations d'origine contrôlée in the 1930s then set the rules that would inspire the whole world. Today, France vies every year with Italy and Spain for first place in world production by volume and remains the ultimate benchmark of the Old World, as much for its age-worthy wines as for its winemaking models. Vineyards cover almost the entire country, from the cool north of Champagne and Alsace to the Mediterranean shores of Languedoc and Provence, by way of the oceanic climates of Bordeaux, the Loire and the South-West, continental Burgundy, the steep slopes of the northern Rhône and the high-altitude valleys of Savoie and the Jura. This mosaic of soils – limestone, schist, gravel or rounded pebbles – explains the extraordinary diversity of styles. As for grape varieties, Cabernet Sauvignon and Merlot dominate Bordeaux and produce structured reds, Pinot Noir is the signature of Burgundian finesse, Syrah of the depth of the Rhône, while Grenache, Gamay, Cabernet Franc and Mourvèdre cover every register, from easy-drinking wines to wines for long ageing. Among the whites, Chardonnay, Sauvignon Blanc, Chenin, Riesling and Viognier offer expressions ranging from lively and mineral to unctuous, all the way to great sweet wines. A land of benchmarks and constant discoveries, France remains the compass for wine lovers the world over.