Clos Larrouyat

France, South West

The Story

The vineyards of South West France enjoy a unique climate for viticulture, but have somehow escaped the crowds and prices of their neighbours a few hours north. The historic region of Jurançon is an often overlooked hidden gem tucked in this corner of France with vines in the shadow of the Pyrenees. At elevations of 200-300m altitude, the grapes enjoy a climate that combines fresh mountain breezes and warm air streams from the south and an oceanic influence from the Atlantic. Lots of rain throughout the year means happy vines and lots of green horizons, and foehn winds arrive in the fall, drying the air and creating the perfect conditions for late harvesting of sweet wines.

At the top of one of the dramatic amphitheater of wines is Clos Larrouyat, with three hectares of vineyards on sheltered, northwest-facing slopes in the coolest part of the appellation. Winemaker Maxime Salharang crafts crystalline white wines that defy expectations for what is possible from the grapes and terroir of Jurançon. The Domaine includes a rare band of Triassic limestone that gives the wines a distinctive saline signature.

We have been longtime fans of Maxime– he was the winemaker at our other Jurançon producer Domaine de Souch for nearly a decade. When he created his own estate, we knew the wines were destined for greatness and were eager supporters from the start. Maxine reminded us, “In 2014, our first year, we produced 300 bottles. And I sent 120 to Dynamic.” Maxime says his experience at Souch was invaluable, and is still close with all team there. He says that, “Clos Larryout is complementary with Souch, not competition.” The Domaine now produces around 1,000 cases annually, and as the reputation of these delightful wines has spread, we are thankful to have secured our allocation early.

Maxime created the Domaine 2011, and named it after his grandfather, Roger Larrouyat. Roger had three girls, and no son, so the Larrouyat name had perished, until Maxime revived it in his honour. Pronounced Lar-oo-ya, it means “to drag” in Bérnais, the old local dialect. Sadly,Roger passed away shortly after Max launched his vineyard plan, but he surely would be proud to see how the Domaine has flourished.

Clos Larrouyat’s land is typical in the AOC in several ways. Firstly, most of the parcels are Northwest-facing, so it gets much less sun. This leads to slower ripening of the fruit and a longer growing season, more acid in the grapes and a lower level of alcohol.

A second difference is the soils, which were a surprise discovery. After Maxime took over the land, a neighbour who happened to be a geologist, offered to do a study of the soils.
The geologist explained the geological history of the Pyranees, and gave them the cadastre, the official map of the land, which revealed the scientific reasons why his grapes were so different than most in Jurançon. Many of the vineyards are on a rare band of Trias– clay with sediments from 250 million years ago (for comparison chalk is 50 million years old). This is the same soil known for top wines in Jura, and it gives a distinctive saline signature.

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These are racy, mineral-focused whites that are more reminiscent of Chablis than with any other Southern whites.

Maxime Salharang

The last key to Larrouyat’s signature style is the use of malolactic fermentation, which is rare for Jurançon sec. It was another happy accident, which gives the wines a richer texture and mouth feel and truly sets them apart.

Fermentation starts in stainless steel and continues in a barrel, where it spends all winter, with some battonage. Maxime uses only old barrels, purchased from Smith-Haut Lafitte, where he worked during his oenological studies. He buys around a dozen small barrels each year, and uses them for 3-6 years, on all of his wines.

The Jurançon AOC is traditionally just for sweet wines, and dry wines were made to use up grapes that weren’t used for sweet wines. Eventually they became popular and were added to the regulations in the 80’s, labeled as Jurancon Sec. These dry wines now make up the vast majority of the production of the region and are 90% of the Clos Larrouyat’s production. They produce two dry wines: Météore showcases the zippy citrus and acidity of Gros Manseng, and Comète is a blend with Petit Manseng.

The cooler conditions of Clos Larrouyat mean fewer grapes with the ideal characteristics for making passilerage wines. But when Maxine’s stars align, his cuvée Phoenix is a moelleux from late-harvested Petit Manseng dried on the vine that is a benchmark for sweet Jurançon. He releases it in a smaller 50cl bottle, which he says is more inviting to open and share. He explains, “People are afraid to open a full bottle of sweet wine. But when they open it, they will drink it all surely!”

Maxime is also experimenting with making a macerated dry white, feeling the thick, tannic skins of Manseng are ideal for making skin contact wine. Like everything Maxime creates, we are eager to taste the results.

Each cuvée shares the domaine’s style– a saline note from the terroir, careful minimal winemaking and focus on freshness.

Maxime Salharang

The People

Maxime & Lucie

Maxime Salharang grew up in the area and studied oenology in Bordeaux with professor Denis Dubourdieu, one of the most respected winemakers and researchers of his generation. Maxime began to dream of one day making his own wine from his own land, but worried it might always be out of reach. During a visit back home, he shared this dream with his family, and his mother remembered that the nearby land of his grandfather was actually in the AOC Jurançon. It was being used as a little farm with cows for milk, strawberry patches and a small house for family holidays.

Maxime began to explore the possibilities of growing grapes there, and to no one’s surprise, found challenges at every turn. In France, it is rare to start from zero with land that has never been farmed, let alone never had vines. The authorisations and administration were endless, but eventually he was given permission. For 8 years he planned, planted and built, all the while refining his winemaking skills at Souch.

During that time, Maxime met his now wife Lucie at a party, and the two were instantly inseparable. Lucie’s parents were winemakers so she knew the rigour and realities of lifestyle, and was impressed by what Maxime wanted to create. She came to the Domaine to do the harvest with him in 2014, and never left. They married in 2019, and have two young boys, Gabin and Noah.

The fourth member of the family is P’tit Loup, a black and white border collie who follows Maxime like a shadow, except when he is harassing their brood of chickens.

The vineyard management team is led by a flock of twenty or so L’ile d’Ouessant sheep, which are amongst the smallest in the world. Maxime and Lucie chose this breed because their vines are trained so low, a larger sheep would damage the vines when passing between the rows. The sheep winter amongst the vines from November to February, munching on the grasses and leaving their rich fertiliser behind. On our recent visit several spring lambs had just been born, and it was clear that Lucie’s affection for the animals goes far beyond their usefulness in the vineyards.

The menagerie concludes with two old horses and a small pony who wander the hills around the Domaine. Lucie is a horse lover and longtime rider and wanted to integrate horses into their work. She completed a course in Bordeaux on traction animale, or how to work the soils with animals, and found some horses for their Domaine. Ultimately, they didn’t work out as a solution for their parcels, but Lucie decided to keep them, and now refers to their place as a “retirement home for horses.”

The Place

The Gan, a remote corner of southwest France, in the shadow of the Pyranées, is best known as a staging base for the Tour de France. But it is an area brimming with secret treasures. One of those is Clos Larrouyat, a three-hectare Domaine on a hilltop in the commune of La Chapelle de Rousse, just south of Pau. At the end of a dusty, climbing road, a small sign directs visitors to a charming cloister of buildings and surrounding verdant vineyards. The crest of their heavily sloping flagship parcel affords a stunning view of the Pic de Midi d’Osseu, nicknamed Jeanne-Pierre, one of the highest peaks of the Pyranées and a true symbol of the Béarn. This area is not just stunning scenery however, it also has a unique microclimate with very high rainfall and temperatures are usually six degrees cooler then nearby in Gan.

Biodynamics, polyculture with animals and minimal intervention have been his vision since the start. It’s rare today to have a vineyard start from scratch, and this gave Maxime the important chance to make every growing and winemaking decision himself.

Vines are planted closer to the ground to get more freshness from the soil, and closer to each other to create more shade from the sun. This means the grapes seldom ripen to more than 13° potential. Soils are manually tilled or grazed by sheep to thin the grasses when needed. Lucie says, “Vines need to breathe, so we must control the vegetation around them. We work like in a garden, everyday!”

Down the hill from vines are the winemaking cellar and the family home, both built primarily by their own hands and all within a stone’s throw of one another. Their home, which was finished mostly by Lucie while Maxime worked in the vines, is surrounded by fragrant beds of flowers and overflowing vegetable gardens.

Maxime designed and constructed the small but very lovely chai and tasting room. He is clearly proud of the work but is most excited about his new pneumatic press– a larger press he recently purchased. He explains, “We must have a very gentle press as the grapes are quite fragile.” He buys most of the equipment the Domaine needs second-hand, but for everything that touches the wine, he insists on only new.

It’s a short journey from the vines to the press, so the grapes spend only an hour or two in the harvest baskets, which are brought in by tractor and then sent straight to the press. Everything is done on-site, including bottling by a mobile truck.

On our recent visit the chai was empty, save for a sole fiberglass cuve with 4500hl of juice from the 2023 harvest. Rainy, wet conditions led to a loss of nearly two-thirds of the crop that vintage. Maxime glances around and sighs, “An empty cellar, with just one cuvée of wine. This is not good for the morale.” But he also insists he was lucky, as many of his neighbours had total losses. “There are vignerons with 40 years of experience who lost everything! It is not a question of doing things wrong or even differently. There is just nothing to do!”

Maxime straps on a simple backpack with a shiny copper sprayer and asks us to follow him into the vines. Inside the canister is a special treatment for mildew, which is one of the few weapons he has, to battle wet conditions. The treatment requires several hours to dry, and he had been eagerly awaiting a break in the seemingly endless rains. He seized the moment to apply the tincture, passing slowly through his vines while describing how copper has been proven to help integrate the elements of biodynamic preparations. As the light bounced off the glimmering vessel, we couldn’t help noting the pleasing contrast to the hazmat suits and motorised sprayers used by many conventional growers. Maxime has indeed created his own little utopia, for his family as well as for his grapes, and he so carefully nurtures it all. This vision and dedication are reflected in his mouth-watering wines that burst with energy and life. A hidden gem indeed.

Maxime takes pride in the purity of his land, which he says “has never known chemistry".

Maxime Salharang