2020 Léon Barral Faugères
WINEMAKER: Didier Barral
REGION: Languedoc, FR
VARIETY: Carignan, Grenache, Cinsault
VITICULTURE: Organic/Biodynamic
"I was with Thierry Allemand some years ago and he took me to his favorite restaurant, La Cachette in Valence, for dinner after our tasting; with a few others we sat back and he ordered some great bottles, all were superb but the Faugères from Barral had us all in awe - it was served last and it trounced everything we had had; it had Thierry shaking his head. That is one serious complement!
The “Faugères” is a blend of Carignan, Grenache and Cinsault. The Cinsault is amazing, yielding luscious aromas of cherry, plums and violet; the Carignan provides colour and concentration and the Grenache gives fragrant garrigue notes of bay leaf and thyme as well as a supple mouthfeel. This is a wine that although delicious now will also cellar to advantage for 10 years." - Andrew Guard
Barral is the ultimate biodynamic farmer. He allows his cows and sheep to graze amongst his old bush-vines during the winter months as this provides them with the most natural form of fertiliser! In the winery, everything is natural, from the wild yeasts which ferment his grapes to the absence of sulphur or filtration. The resulting wines are pure, unadulterated expressions of the rugged, scrub-covered hills of this part of Mediterranean France and the perfect cold weather reds.
In his words, "Nowadays, farmers feed the planet but destroy it at the same time. Sometimes they think they are doing the right thing by ploughing too often for example, which eventually damages the soil structure. We have to observe nature and to understand how micro-organisms operate. Then we see that tools and machinery can never replace the natural, gentle work of earthworms, insects and other creatures that travel through a maze of tunnels, creating porosity and aerating the soil, making it permeable and alive. There‘s grass in our vineyards and amongst the grass, there are cows and horses: a whole living world that lives together, each dependent on the other and each being vital to the balance of the biotope".