Find the Teras
Find the Calcinaires
Robert and Kim Cripps have been fine-tuning this wine for eight years and reckon they now have it about right. The idea is to have a wine with real depth of flavour without too much alcohol (this is well under 13%). He says, "selling wine in Germany has opened my eyes to the idea of intensity rather than power". It does indeed have rather a Riesling-like structure (how's that for praise?) with very fine acidity and keen, fruity aromas although it is bone dry. There is a certain honeyed quality to it and it rather reminds me of the delicious Dom Gauby, Les Calcinaires 2005 Côtes Catalanes, another southern French blended white with notable acidity and relatively low alcohol which is widely available in Europe and is also available at £95 a case in bond from A & B Vintners in the UK. To find out more about the gifted Gaubys, read this article.
Both wines clearly have a glorious future ahead and the Cripps assure us that their 1999 Teras prototype is still drinking well.
Dom du Poujol, Teras 2005 Vin de Pays de l'Hérault is a blend of 40% Vermentino (the Sardinian grape that is apparently the same as Rolle and Pigato in Liguria), 35% Roussanne from the northern Rhône and 25% Carignan Blanc from a hillside vineyard planted in 1961. The Roussanne and vermentino were grafted on to Carignan vines planted in 1983 and the soil is rocky limestone. I do think you can taste a vaguely burgundian/limestone nuance to this wine. The Roussanne and some of the Vermentino were picked in early September and the rest of the grapes in late September and early October. They use no sulphur apart from a tiny dose just after the malolactic fermentation. Fermentation and much of the elevage take place in old 500 litre barrels and the wine is neither filtered nor fined. The Cripps are very keen that their wine should be rested after shipping, not served too cold, and they told me to taste it over several nights. Which I did and was impressed by the wine's complexity and drinkability. Teras is stoppered with the novel Guala Seal plastic covered cork which at least has the advantage of being easy to re-insert in the bottle neck.
Only 3,000 bottles were filled with it and there is currently only one stockist in the UK, Duncan Murray of Market Harborough who charges £10.99 a bottle for it. You can also presumably order it from www.domainedupoujol.com and find a list of their importers/customers, who include Kermit Lynch in the US, here.