I started at Domestique in October 2018 and pretty much immediately fell in love with the wines of Les Deplaude de Tartaras. I’m not sure if it was the beautiful labels (perhaps TBH), but the story I tell is that I saw their wine Mine de Rien and had to know more about the super obscure grape variety it held within (Mornen Noir). Over the next few weeks, each cuvée of theirs in the shop was on my list of wines to drink and each week I grew more impressed.
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Once I started looking into why that was, it took me down a rabbit hole of reading about dry farming, organic-friendly climates, polyculture, and old vines. These are things that France's South has in spades. And they're what makes it such a hotbed for compelling natural wines that are both classic and vin de soifs. The only reason they don't usually get the respect (and, luckily, prices), at least historically, of their natural wine cousins to the North is because they fall below a certain latitude.
Jouves and Deplaude are two of the more important producers to me personally, but they are of many who are pioneering a new age of natural wine in the South. This is an area where it's all possible for anyone who is willing to work for it and make a name for themselves. What we have here at the shop is just the tip of the iceberg. There is so much to explore. I just hope you’re curious.
-Eric