Spanish gold in colour, or should that be Catalan gold. The wine has distinctive aromatics of honey, beeswax, quince, lanolin and even fine white Burgundy (that must be the 0.5 % of Chardonnay in the blend!).The palate is fresh with nutty notes added to the orchard fruit and the flinty foundations; the famously fresh agrume finish ties it up seamlessly.

Deep in the rugged Côtes Catalanes of Roussillon, the village of St Martin de Fenouillet is home to this outstanding winery, created a decade ago by local legend Gerald Gauby and farmed on organic principles.
A healthy cocktail of altitude and old vines underwrite quality here. The blend is complex and the yields are exceptionally low (15 hl/hectare). Traditional vinification is completed by 18 month ageing on fine lees in 500 litre barrels, half of which are new.
Simon Field MW - Wine Buyer

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.