2010 Southern France

The magic of Eloi Durbach’s Mediterranean vineyard stems not only from the natural beauty of the Beaux-de-Provence setting, with its gentle rolling hills and aromas of scrub, thyme and rosemary, not only from its romantic genesis and on-going connections with the bohemian world of painting and sculpture, but also from the simple philosophy which has informed the winemaking itself. Eschewing the dictates of Appellation Contrôleé and no friend of techniques such as destemming, filtration or the use of cultured yeasts, Eloi has ploughed on ( probably with a horse) and built a reputation for this wonderful wine with labels drawn by his late father, each subtly different , each designed to capture something of the essence of the vintage in question.

A propos, the 2010 is an outstanding example and therefore logically will merit a label which captures the colours and contours of a perfect season. The wine repays the compliment; the blend is divided equally between Cabernet Sauvignon and Syrah, the former lending an elegant Palladian structure, the later bright arboreal colour…..or in wine speak, firm but finely-etched tannins and a measured density of fruit, with blackberry and black cherry to the fore, and behind that hints of bay laurel and distant autumnal bonfires. The achievement of interloping Cabernet Sauvignon into these warm Provençal vineyards has been significant, and has no better illustration than the 2010 vintage.

Langlade is known to those of a literary bent as the home, for over thirty years, of Lawrence Durrell. To those who also know their wines, it has been the home for a similar length of time to an affable reformed computer scientist by the name of Rémy Pédrano, who took it upon himself to rescue a famous winemaking region which had been ravaged by the phylloxera disease a century previously.

The enthusiasm and energy of the man suggests that the change of career was a wise one. The transition was assisted in no small measure by our old friend René Rostaing of Côte Rôtie who was originally Remy’s landlord. Rostaing has bought elsewhere and now M Pédréno is his own master. A champion of indigenous varieties, especially Carignan, Remy eschews intervention in both the vines and the winery.

His yields are naturally low, so green harvesting an similar ‘compensatory ‘ techniques are unnecessary and in the winery maceration is gentle and not forced by sometimes brutal techniques such as delestage, popular elsewhere in the parish. The wood, unsurprisingly, is not new and the wine is allowed a leisurely 16 months to gather its wits in a decorous and harmonious fashion.
Simon Field MW, Wine Buyer