IGP Côtes Catalanes “Espurna” (Red) 2020

Winemaker Sébastien Danjou says: "We sell the vintage which is the most ready to be drunk, so if we have to wait five years, no problem. It ages for as long as it needs, in bottle or barrel.’ The last vintage on the market was the 2015. Danjou adds, ‘It is very very difficult to have quality and purity of Cinsault because of its thin skins – just two days, at harvest time, makes a huge difference. There is not a lot of Cinsault in Roussillon, but more and more producers are finding it interesting."

"I keep using the word extraordinary, as I taste these Danjou-Banessy wines. SO floral, so perfumed, so extraordinary. This smells like the most glorious tea. A touch of cool mint, cumin and star anise, rooibos and black cardamom, nectarine skin. There are some wines you smell with your whole soul – you breathe the wine in and it builds with an urgency, a quiet insistence. This wine, with its tightly netted rich-but-honed-into-arrows fierce dark-red spiced-skin fruit, comes at you with fists and spoken rap poetry. It finishes like a cashmere scarf." 18 points, Tamlyn Currin for JancisRobinson.com.

Terroir: “Les Terres Noires” slate soil

Vine Age: Over 100 years old

Vinification: Whole-cluster pressing // indigenous yeast fermentation // no chaptalization or acidification // aged for 30 months in barrel // unfined // unfiltered.