Mas de la Deveze

Olivier Bernstein is perhaps better known to BBR customers for his peerless range of Premier and Grand Cru wines from some of the (self-evidently) best sites in the Côte D’Or. Before the genesis of this resoundingly successful project, however, he was making wines in the Roussillon, where he still lives, his domaine located in the village of Tautavel, just to the north-west of Pérpignan and close to the famous property of Mas Amiel.

The vines have an average age of three score and ten and the poor schist-riven soils mean that yields seldom exceed 20 hl/ha. Olivier aspires to create wines that are ripe, but with plenty of acidity and mineral freshness; some of the techniques learnt in Burgundy have been introduced to this end, with whole berry fermentation and a tendancy to shorter maceration being key examples. The slightly sauvage character so typical of the great wines of the region has not been forsaken, however. Far from it.