Terres Falmet, Saint-Chinian
Terres Falmet, Saint-Chinian
Background
South of the village of Cébazan, the road snakes towards the city of Beziers and the coastal plains, passing steep banks of folded limestone, crushed by immeasurable force over immense time into a series of elongated ridgelines. On one of these slopes sits a single large contiguous block of vines, about 20 hectares, oriented towards the north, and protected from the harshest glare of the summer sun. Although it seemed the perfect spot for growing vines in a dry, bright region, this plot, with the lieu-dit name of la Dèveze (an Occitan word for highland), was slowly being abandoned, left to return to scrubby garrigue and woodland. It was seen as just too difficult and dangerous to continue working this daunting and rocky incline. That was, until Yves Falmet fell in love with these same forbidding hillsides, understood their potential, and resolved to farm them.
Burgeoning Reputation
Known locally as ‘the philosopher’ Yves already knew quite a lot about growing grapes under similarly difficult conditions, hailing from a Champenoise family and helping his parents tend the vines that grew along the chalk valley sides. After studying biochemistry at university in Montpellier, he retrained in oenology and honed his craft in wineries across France, Australia, New Zealand and the US. In 1996 he bought the land that would become Terres Falmet, and began replanting the abandoned portions of the vineyard. Almost everything had to be built from the ground up, with no buildings or equipment in the domain’s possession. Moreover, the vineyard’s gradient made it impossible to mechanise much of the labour, even the planting of vines, with Yves’ careful manual viticulture a virtue born of strict necessity. Yet, for all its difficulty, results have vindicated his impassioned, meticulous and patient labour, Terres Falmet rocketing to the top of the quality tree in Saint-Chinian after just a few decades of operation.
From Yves Falmet:
This is a wine I have created for true wine enthusiasts, those who do not resign themselves to the standardisation of taste, to stereotyped and uniform wines, in short, to the prevailing trend for ultra-conformism.
Terroir
The secret of Yves’s wine lies in the emblematic slope of la Dèveze, an infertile strata of limestone and pebbles overlying deep clays. Water percolates through this highly permeable upper layer into the clays, which act as a reservoir in times of drought, and force the vines to grow extensive, searching root systems. This geology helps reduce vigour, and also ensures that the vines never suffer hydric stress during even the hottest and driest of summers. Its steep north facing aspect provides perfect exposure whilst also minimising the risk of sunburn or overripeness, Yves is able to harvest healthy and high-quality grapes whatever the vintage. The vineyard is planted to Grenache, Syrah, Cinsault, Aramon, Carignan and Mourvèdre, Yves practicing a form of lutte raisonée and always trying to put ecological considerations at the heart of all his work. More recently, Terres Falmet has gained formal HVE certification.
Winemaking philosophy
Harvesting and selection is all done by hand, with fruit destemmed and gently crushed, before fermentation and maceration with regular pumping over. Fruit of this quality deserves transparency, and oak is largely eschewed, with most grapes fermented and matured in tank to give the most direct, fresh and aromatically pure expression possible. Although his vinification is avowedly ‘traditional,’ Yves is never a prisoner to this tradition, making a range of varietal wines that cannot be bottled as Saint-Chinian because the appellation rules dictate that wines must be blends. These offer exquisite typicity and fruit character, labelled as humble Vin de France but expressing the essence of the great red grapes of Languedoc, including a rare monovarietal Aramon cuvée. Yves also produces an intriguing experimental wine – À Contre Courant – by barrel-aging old vine Grenache and Carignan for an extended period under a yeast flor. A wine without any close precedent, this is incredible to experience – rich dried fruit flavours with oxidative complexities and a savoury core inflected by notes of umami. Their flagship Saint-Chinian is made with the best fruit from the steepest upper slopes. This blend of Syrah and Mourvèdre – L’ivresse des Cîmes [the heights of intoxication!] – is vibrant, spicy and dark-fruited, with a density and poise far beyond its price point. Silky, bright and fruit-forward across the range, these are wines of beautiful simplicity that represent outrageous relative value.
Their Wines