Francois Xavier AKA 'FX'. FX was vineyard manager for Tom Lubbe at Domaine Matassa for five years. He spent a further year with Domaine Danjou-Banessy. After such time this local lad set up in Espira to make his own wholly exciting wines. Whole bunch fermentation in stainless-steel tanks for 5 days for this beautiful Mourvedre from very old wines. On the morning of the 6th day the grapes were pressed, and the juice transferred back to stainless-steel tanks to complete fermentation. Only the naturally occurring indigenous yeasts were used in the fermentation. The wine was then aged 5 months in tank. Prior to bottling a very low dose of sulphites was added. Bottled unfined and unfiltered. Vivid, bright and wild wine.

Very rare indeed. A tiny amount for the UK. Ubuntu is organically grown 80% Grenache Gris and 20% Grenache Noir from schist soil over a bed of clay-limestone that sees skin macération and whole bunch fermentation for seven days. This fermenting juice is transferred and left to breed in amphora for five months. Bottled with a very low dose of sulphites, unfined and unfiltered. Amazing tension. This feels like a "light red wine" to us (albeit one with tension and real interest), so that's what we have called it. Amazing, and in limited quantities.

Final assemblage: 55% Syrah, 35% Carignan & Cinsault and 15% Grenache Noir. Organically grown on schist, basalt and grés (sandstone) that yielded beautifully balanced fruit but at a very low 15 hl per ha. Manual harvest into small caskets. The Syrah and Grenache were both destemmed and vinified separately in 2yr and 5yr old 500l barrels (Saury). The Carignan was vinified on stems and in steel tank. The Cinsault was destemmed and vinified in steel tank. Natural yeast (no inoculated yeast used). Breeding took place in 2yr and 5yr old 500l barrels (Saury) for the Syrah and Grenache, and in steel tank for the Cinsault and Carignan, for a total time of 32 months with no batonnage. Bottled without fining or filtration. Bottled with a very, very low addition of sulphites (no sulphite additions at any point previously). No other additions at all. The wine has interest, complexity and depth, it is beautifully resolved - an elegant and pretty red-fruited wine with delightful freshness and length. With this quality and with the wines age, it’s a very nice offer indeed. The wine was selected (with one of the very highest scores) as one of 80 ‘Coups de Coeur’ by Guide Gault & Millau for the year 2020 Review below - "The colour appears black, intense with purple reflections. The nose presents an elegant maturity with predominantly fruity cherry and blackberry punctuated by spicy notes (pepper, cinnamon). In the mouth, the cherry is very present with other stone fruits (plum, prune). The leather and cocoa prolong a very fresh and digestible finish. The texture is dense and velvety. A complex and racy wine that evolves beautifully without losing its beautiful tension".

Natural wine from Simon Coulshaw: no cultured yeast, enzymes, chemical tannins or fining product. 90% 130 yr old-vine Cinsault, 10% Syrah. I was instructed to chill this a bit before tasting. It was in the fridge for about 25 minutes and then left out for 10 minutes before tasting. Fresh red-berried nose. Hurrah! Here is another Languedoc producer who 'gets' Cinsault. Perky, bright, raspberries and with that lovely telltale Cinsault salty-sweet tang that always reminds me of the best prosciutto or jamon. A bit of white pepper and ground cumin tangled into feather-light sinews of tannin. This is absolutely YUM. Tapas/aperitivo wine, without a doubt. I could drink this all summer long. GV (TC) 17/20 Jancisrobinson.com

This seamless blend of Shiraz, Merlot and Cabernet has created an enticing wine that exceeds all expectations. Ripe fruits of dark cherry, blackberry, plum and raspberry are complimented by the secondary notes of vanilla and mixed spices. The silky, satin like fruit profile, encompassed by lovely ripe tannins, cascades effortlessly through the palate providing fantastic depth and the WOW factor.

After the spring frost affected 2021 (see grapes blended with Roussanne, Grenache and Syrah to produce ‘Le Duc’), Simon didn’t only lose a large percentage of fruit that year, he lost approximately 20% of the Viognier vines! Just when you thought this man's luck couldn’t get any worse! But the L’Invite 2022 displays more of the richer and classic Viognier characters than is usual from this extraordinarily high and stunning terroir of schist with large pebbles of basalt mixed in. These characters marry well with the awesome minerality this site constantly shows. An absolute stunner.

Made by Simon Coulshaw of the minimal-intervention school. Biodynamic farming although not certified. 100% Roussanne planted on their highest vineyards, a steep north-facing slope in the foothills of the Cévennes mountains. Isolated vineyards surrounded by herbaceous shrub and woodland on schist and basalt boulders. Hand-picked at 20-25 hl/ha, Five days' on skins then 48 hours of cold settling before racking. Spontaneous fermentation, no enzymes, no fining, minimal sulphur and sulphites. Carbon dioxide nap used to avoid oxidation.

It's here, the 'Coulsh-Rotie". Simon "The Coulsh'" Coulshaw's fabulous take on this iconic wine. "I put this glass of wine to my nose, and had I not been firmly anchored to a chair, would have taken five steps back. The aroma swept me off my feet. Indescribable. Wild. One Thousand and One Nights distilled into a glass. Heady and exotic and riddled with rose petals and spice and coiled with riddles and one sniff of this is poetry and myth and folklore and kitchen table and campfire and someone's cigarette stubbed out at 3 am in lonely finality. Garrigue-spiced aromatics spiral through rock, plant, seed, flower with dazzling complexity. One moment it's rose petals, so delicate you could brush a baby's lips with it; the next it's hot tar, underground angry, rocks shifting deep in the cracks of the earth. This is a velvety, cocoa-dusted, amped-up-then-restrained, dark-horse beauty. Vertical, dark, slub-silk fruit with overtones of tamari and dark chocolate, crushed coffee beans and sweet forest-floor earth. Long and the kind of wine that coils around you slowly, sinuously, sensuously. Worth every penny. You'd pay three times this for a Rhône of this stature". (TC) 18/20 jancisrobinson.com When to drink 2023 - 2035 Published on 29 Nov 2021 Date tasted 29 Nov 2021

Simon Coulshaw makes natural wines: no cultured yeast, enzymes, chemical tannins or fining product and farming with respect to the environment, although the domaine isn't certified organic. jancisrobinson.com Review: Full bottle 1,126 g. 65% Grenache Noir, 20% Syrah, 15% Carignan, organically and biodynamically farmed. Out of the 22 ha that Simon Coulshaw has under vine, 16 are in Faugère and 6 in Pézenas. But, as Coulshaw points out, they are more than 30 km from Pézenas, so while vineyards for the appellation are typically on villafranchian and clay-limestone soils or on black, grey and blue schist, this vineyard is on golden schist. (Coulshaw at this point goes into a charming rhapsody about how beguilingly beautiful schist is...) Le Pech Mege is a single vineyard, the most isolated of all his Pézenas vineyards. Spontaneous fermentation, stainless steel, low sulphite additions, minimal interventions. Coulshaw recommends that this wine is drunk cooler than room temperature. I'd pop it in the fridge for 10–15 minutes to get it down to around 16 °C/61 °F. “It's rare that a Languedoc wine (or any wine, to be frank) can pull off the tightrope balance of pert, outright cheeky freshness and straightforward fruit whilst being pretty dense and concentrated at the same time. This wine defies the laws of gravity. At its heart, there is a deep tobacco-leaf wrapped, chocolate-streaked, umeboshi-plum and soy-umami savouriness, notes of reduced beef stock and game glimmering in the gloaming. But radiating out towards the edges of the wine is this confident, gregarious, sap-filled mulberry fruit and puppy-playful acidity that seems to roll around with gleeful abandon. Supple, lightly astringent but fully ripe tannins. A wine of the vineyard, of the vintage; a wine that shines with a sense of who and what it is”. GV (TC) Alcohol 14% Score 17/20 When to drink 2022 – 2026 Published on 29 Nov 2021 Date tasted 29 Nov 2021 Reviewer Tamlyn Currin

Natural, biodynamic and vegan. Grenache, Carignan and Mourvedre from 80 year old vines, Made without filtering or fining. Pale but gorgeous mid red colour. At first on the nose, you are like "What even is that?". Whatever it is, you know that you like it. Elegant, subtle fruit is intermixed with gentle herb, earth and savoury characters. Deep and wonderful. On the palate the wine is elegant and deep again, but not heavy in the slightest. Ruffled fruit and savoury notes with minerality and real finesse. These wines are like no other from the Roussillon. Outstanding.

A stunning single site Rasteau from organic vigneron Frederic Julien whose name is on everybody's lips. 80% Grenache (1960), 20% Syrah (2002) from south east facing blue clay, galet stone covered limestone, red soils, loose gravel at 250 metres on 'Gramiller' on the route de Saint Roman, a fresh zone, 70% destemmed, 3-4 week vinification at 25°-26°C of varieties apart, small daily pump overs, no press wine added, concrete vat raised for 6 months, unfined, filtered. Certified organic wine. 6,000 bottles produced.

From Yves Falmet: My ‘L'ivresse des Cimes’ label is made from grapes grown on the steepest plots in my vineyard, located right at the top of the hillside. My best expression each year of 'Saint-Chinian'.

A beautiful, precise Rasteau wine. Grenache, Syrah and Mourvedre woven together to produce a very elegant style. A complex nose of baked plums, blackberry, garrigue herbs and hibiscus flowers. Very fine balance on the mid-weight palate. Simply irresistible and utterly moreish. Bravo!

From Yves Falmet: My ‘A Contre Courant’ label is made from grapes from the oldest Carignan and Grenache plots in my vineyard. But what makes this wine outstanding is its maturation under a veil of yeast for four years. Wines matured under a veil of yeast are characterised by the spontaneous development of yeasts which form a veil on the surface of the wine in contact with the ambient air (during its barrel ageing phase). This technique, which is uncommon for wine because of the risk of acetic souring when stored in containers with ullage, gives it specific aroma and flavour characters of fig, tobacco and candied cherry and a substantial finish on the palate. Of the very few wines matured this way, Vin Jaune from Jura is particularly renowned, but there are no red wines. By maturing a red wine using this technique, I am actually going counter to modern standardised winemaking, hence the name of the wine, which means "flying in the face" of established standards and the "tastefully correct". 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.

Natural, biodynamic and vegan. Grenache, Carignan and Mourvedre from 80 year old vines, Made without filtering or fining. Pale but gorgeous mid red colour. At first on the nose, you are like "What even is that?". Whatever it is, you know that you like it. Elegant, subtle fruit is intermixed with gentle herb, earth and savoury charachters. Deep and wonderful. On the palate the wine is elegant and deep again, but not heavy in the slightest. Ruffled fruit and savoury notes with minerality and real finesse. These wines are like no other from the Roussillon. Outstanding. Magnum sized.

Francois Xavier AKA 'FX'. FX worked with Tom Lubbe at Domaine Matassa for five years. He spent a further year with Domaine Danjou-Banessy. After such time this local lad set up in Espira to make his own wholly exciting wines which we are introducing the UK for the first time. Dom. des Lampyres Luminescence 2022 Vin de France 11% alc Skin macération Muscat Petit Grain 70% (on terroir clay limestone) and 30% Muscat d’Alexandrie (terroir clay) . The two parcels were fermented separately with their wild, indigenous yeasts. There was 15 days skin maceration whole bunch for the Muscat a Petit Grain and 20 days whole bunch for the Muscat d’Alexandrie. The Muscat a Petit Grain was aged in cuve for nine months and the Muscat d’Alexandrie was aged for seven months in 10hl Amphora. Juices blended one month before bottling. 2g/hl sulphites added prior to bottling. One of the finest maceration wines of the Roussillon. The 2022 slightly lusher than the 2021. Absolutely awesome wine.

From Yves Falmet: My ‘Aramon’ label is made entirely from this grape variety. Among my Carignan vines, the oldest in my vineyard at over 80 years old, there are still a few Aramon vines. This is because the custom at the time was to mix a few grape varieties within the same plot. Aramon used to be one of the most ubiquitous grape varieties in Languedoc, but it has been almost eradicated in recent decades. Like Cinsault, is has been completely discarded in favour of other grape varieties regionally. However, in a quality site such as the Terres Falmet vineyard, when carefully grown, harvested at the peak of ripeness and skilfully vinted, it produces a beautiful, subtly tannic red wine that is fresh and fruity.

100% Carignan from 80 year old vines. Complex floral aromas. On the palate the fruits, such as raspberry and morello cherry, are crunchy and fresh. There is also a very strong stony/mineral feeling. The finish is long and pure. A vibrant wine.

Francois Xavier AKA 'FX' worked with Tom Lubbe at Domaine Matassa for five years. He spent a further year with Domaine Danjou-Banessy. After such time this local lad set up in Espira to make his own wholly exciting wines which we are introducing the UK for the first time. The deepest, and juiciest of FX’s white wines. This cuvee comes from an absolutely beautiful schist vineyard planted 80 years ago. Like many ancient Roussillon vineyards it is co-planted with Grenache Blanc, Grenache Gris, Grenache Noir and Macabeu. Back in the day farmers would plant in such a way to hedge their bets that they would at least have some grapes at harvest time. The grapes were picked by hand then crushed, pressed and fermentation took place in cuve. It was then aged in cuve for 8 months. 2g/hl sulphites added prior to bottling.

Francois Xavier AKA 'FX' worked with Tom Lubbe at Domaine Matassa for five years. He spent a further year with Domaine Danjou-Banessy. After such time this local lad set up in Espira to make his own wholly exciting wines which we are introducing the UK for the first time. One hundred percent thirty year old vine Syrah on red clay. Eight days skin macération whole bunch. Fermentation in stainless steel and aged seven months in a single 20 hl foudre. 2g/hl sulphites added just before bottling. This is like a fine, gentle Crozes-hermitage with wild notes and tangy blueberry fruit. Very smart and stylish wine from young FX.

Point Triple 2022 is a blend of co-fermented whole bunch Macabeu (schist) and Grenache Blanc (clay) seeing seven days skin macération together. After breeding, a portion of Muscat a Petit Grain (clay-limestone) that sees skin macération and whole bunch fermentation for twenty days, is blended with the other portion one month before bottling. This delightful, wild fermented, textural, insanely bright but savoury maceration wine comes in at a digestible 11% abv. Bottled unfined and unfiltered, with a very low dose of sulphites.

This ‘Orange’ wine is bright yet slightly cloudy in colour thanks to the natural approach to winemaking; with no stabilisation, fining or filtration resulting in a wine with very low sulphur levels. The bouquet is a beautiful mix of citrus, grapefruit, apple and white flesh fruits that follows onto the palate. Complemented by Mediterranean herbs and a backbone of fresh acidity.

This beautiful Margot 2023 (named after FX's little girl, Margot) is utterly divine modern, natural Roussillon Rose. The make up in this organic wine is 50% old vine Grenache Noir (grown on schist) seeing whole bunch and maceration on skins for 7 days and 50% direct press Carignan Noir (grown on clay). The naturally fermented juices are blended after malolactic fermentation. Tank aged for five months. A very low dose of sulphites at bottling. Bottled unfined and unfiltered. Coming in at a delightful 12% alcohol. A beautiful label drawn in school by young Margot also!