Clos Fantine: Faugères in Your Cup!
Clos Fantine is a small family winery that sits on breezy, sloping hills behind the commune of Cabrerolles in the Faugères AOC. The long road that winds up to the front door is lined with brightly colored wildflowers sprouting between slabs of exposed schist, and 9 hectares of gnarly vines and fruit trees. At a glance the place looks placid, but everywhere the eyes rest is teeming with life.
After inheriting the winery from their father, siblings Caroline, Olivier, and Corine Andrieu continue to live and make wine in the house where their grandmother was born. The property totals around 30 hectares of organic Mourvèdre, Grenache, Terret Blanc and Gris, Cinsault, Syrah, and Aramont (a very old variety, planted in 1915) vines. Each of their parcels was "liberated" from their wire-training 20 years ago and now grow in perfect rows as bush vines -- which they say is preferable for the windy hillsides and sunny clime. In an effort to encourage biodiversity in the vines, they do not plow, so the grass grows high between the rows in the summer and is managed by sheep in the winter.
The Andrieu's philosophy of cultivating life and balance in the vines carries over to their work in the cellar. For the Andrieu family, working with ambient yeast is the most important aspect of vinification. They explained that during fermentation there are different populations of active yeasts working in various parts of the vat, and if they were to interrupt that natural composition with pump-overs (remontage) or pigeage, for example, then it would consequently diminish the complexity of their finished wine. Instead, they gently wet the caps with wine to keep it from oxidizing in the tank. Admittedly, it did not take long for me to lose this thread of conversation in French, but when we tasted the wines I knew all was not lost in translation.
The wines from Clos Fantine have been a staple for our Languedoc section for some time now. It seems that the winemaking becomes more intuitive and confident with each new vintage. Whether that is the work of the industrious yeast colonies or not, these are wines that resonate emotionally, and we are pleased to offer them today.
-Amanda Bowman
