‘Yesterday when I was young, the taste of life was sweet as rain upon my tongue’

I’m often asked what it is that I look for when I taste a wine. I cannot recall my exact answer, but I guess it’s something like the late, great, Charles Aznavour is attempting to describe. Perhaps the search for truth, beauty, love and a return to the simplicity of youth – before life gets in the way and makes things just a little too complex.

L’Orphée is an equal blend of Grenache Noir and Grenache Blanc and 50% Syrah and expressive of the terroir and biodynamic practices of Mas Foulaquier’s  eight hectares on the northernmost edge of the Pic Saint Loup. 

The soil itself, as D H Lawrence would describe it: nurse of passions, stage of dramas, and habitat of local gods.

It opens dramatically with a bit of oxygen, so give a bit of air, put down the Baudelaire, and marvel as the earthy and floral aromatics come to the fore, exploding with rich dark blueberries, plum, pepper and violets prior to a lip smackingly sapid and softly generous finish with a stony minerality and plenty of concentration.

Like rain upon the tongue!