IGP Côtes Catalanes “Les Mirandes” (Red) 2018

"Sweet, salty tang – I completely get what he says when he describes this wine as wild. Rooibos tea. Sweaty stallion. Ripe mulberries dropping onto a hot stone wall and charring in the midday sun. Tarmac. Controlled energy. Sumac and dried damson black-olive tang. Purple-velvet-clad-sackcloth tannins. Black tea and wild gamey venison charcuterie. A wine that you are forced to think about; a wine that will divide the room. You’ll take sides. But it will challenge you to think." 17 points, Tamlyn Currin for JancisRobinson.com, July 2021.

Winemaker: Sébastien Danjou-Banessy - "My grandfather was the last winemaker in the village to plant Syrah – obliged to do so because the appellation regulations demanded some Syrah in the cuvée (even though Syrah does not thrive in Roussillon). Because it was grown in the Rhône, it was considered ‘une cépage améliorateur’ – a superior grape to the local varieties. ‘These rigid, ignorant rules have resulted in the extinction of local varieties which could now be vitally important with climate change.’ We chose a black label for this cuvée alone for several reasons: the colour of the Syrah (so much deeper than all their other wines), the taste (‘very wild, sauvage, black’), and because it is not a Roussillon variety. This is an adoption."

Match it with: Good with game and wild-boar charcuterie.

Terroir: Plot called "Les Mirandes", basalt volcanic soils.

Ages of the vines: 15 years old.