Appellation: Vin de France.
Cuvée: Fleur de Cailloux.
Colour: White.
Grapes: Grenache Blanc 50%, Macabeu 40%, and Grenache Gris 10%.
About: called the “flower of stones” this complex and mineral white expresses spectacular freshness, and delicious stone fruits, for only 12.5%.

Vines

Location: from several parcels near Calce.
Size ha: 5.
Age: vines planted in 1940, except half the Grenache Blanc planted in 2000.
Soils: on a mix, a mosaic of soils, mostly limestone, including clay-limestone and calcareous marls, some schist.
Exposition: various, mostly south and west.
Altitude: 240m.
Training: gobelet.
Farming: organic and biodynamic.
Average yield hl/ha: 25.
Climate: Mediterranean.

Winemaking

Whole bunches are pressed direct and then cold settled before being moved to ferment in a mix of enamel tank, old 300L and 600L barrels and one foudre for the Grenache Blanc and Gris and in concrete for the Macabeu. Natural yeasts, no sulfites. The malo happens naturally (or doesn’t). The wine isn’t touched until being blended before bottling, when a touch of sulfites are added and it’s lightly filtered.

Vintage Notes 2017
Yield hl/ha: .
Harvested: .
Bottles produced: 12,000.
Date bottled: 2018-05.
Alcohol %: 12.59.
SO2 Total: 36.
Tasting: .

Vintage Notes 2018
Yield hl/ha: .
Harvested: .
Bottles produced: 12,000.
Date bottled: .
Alcohol %: .
SO2 Total: .
Tasting: of component parts after the harvest suggest richness yet silky, ethereal, smokey with fruits and vegetal character, some oxidative complexity, some sweetness. Salty, stony, bright, peach, orange, floral.

Vintage Notes 2019
Dry winter followed by early Spring rain, stable flowering, then marked by a run of heatwaves in the summer causing hydric stress, drought.
Yield hl/ha: 15
Harvested: 16 – 20 August
Bottles produced: 15,000
Date bottled: 2020-05
Alcohol %: 11.8
SO2 Total: 0 added
Tasting: 2021-02-16 like the Tourbillon, grapey, warm peach fruit upfront, then turns mineral vegetal with tension from a touch of astringency and vibrant acidity.

Vintage Notes 2020
After the hydric stress of 2019, the beginning of the season was particularly wet, a real challenge, with huge mildew pressure, which didn’t really end until late July, not so warm either, then a very early harvest end of August. The most challenging year since 2003, to which the best vignerons rise. As if mildew wasn’t enough, wild boar ate grapes with abandon. The hunters had been banned due to covid restrictions in one of the season’s many absurdities.
Yield hl/ha: 15
Harvested: 16 – 20 August
Bottles produced: 15,000
Date bottled: 2020-06
Alcohol %: 12
SO2 Total: 0 added