Domaine Balansa ‘Bel Soula’ Fitou Rouge 2022
Location: France, Languedoc-Roussillon, Fitou
Winemaker: Céline Peyre & Alexandre Gressent
Grapes: Carignan, Grenache, Syrah
Winemaking: Organic farming. Hand harvest. Co-semi-carbonic maceration of Carignan and Grenache. 14 day maceration of Syrah with spontaneous yeast in tank. Fermented and aged in concrete, bottled unfined & unfiltered.
From us at M&L: Domaine Balansa begins in 2012 with Céline Peyre, who, after living in Paris, felt compelled to return to her roots: the family’s vineyard within the Hautes-Corbières AOC. Céline made the decision with her partner, Alexandre Gressent, in 2015 to take over the old vines and begin producing wine under her own label.
The dramatic sweeping hillsides at the property are home to plantings of 100-year-old Grenache, Carignan, and Syrah, biodynamically farmed across 14 hectares of hillside vines that the Peyre family have been stewards of for multiple generations. The area is known as Fitou Montagneux (mountainous Fitou), and is just uphill from the Etang de Leucate lagoon, directly between Perpignan and Narbonne. This is a romantic place - Mediterranean, sun-drenched and breezy, and Céline’s wines feel like a perfect reflection of this.
Whereas the modern inclination in the region has been toward extracted, voluminous, chewy red wine, Céline is part of a cadre of younger growers in the area who eschew heft for freshness, incorporating the wind and sun to aid their organic viticulture. This was the way in the centuries before: lively, perfumed wines of restorative energy and a hedonistic drinkability.
The ‘Bel Soula’ is a revitalizing bottle of fragrant, delicately spiced, rose-petal-hued-but-not-quite-rosé wine, and with the estate gaining esteem, it might become an iconic ‘vin de soif’. From a parcel co-planted with Grenache & Carignan, and a little Syrah.
Location: France, Languedoc-Roussillon, Fitou
Winemaker: Céline Peyre & Alexandre Gressent
Grapes: Carignan, Grenache, Syrah
Winemaking: Organic farming. Hand harvest. Co-semi-carbonic maceration of Carignan and Grenache. 14 day maceration of Syrah with spontaneous yeast in tank. Fermented and aged in concrete, bottled unfined & unfiltered.
From us at M&L: Domaine Balansa begins in 2012 with Céline Peyre, who, after living in Paris, felt compelled to return to her roots: the family’s vineyard within the Hautes-Corbières AOC. Céline made the decision with her partner, Alexandre Gressent, in 2015 to take over the old vines and begin producing wine under her own label.
The dramatic sweeping hillsides at the property are home to plantings of 100-year-old Grenache, Carignan, and Syrah, biodynamically farmed across 14 hectares of hillside vines that the Peyre family have been stewards of for multiple generations. The area is known as Fitou Montagneux (mountainous Fitou), and is just uphill from the Etang de Leucate lagoon, directly between Perpignan and Narbonne. This is a romantic place - Mediterranean, sun-drenched and breezy, and Céline’s wines feel like a perfect reflection of this.
Whereas the modern inclination in the region has been toward extracted, voluminous, chewy red wine, Céline is part of a cadre of younger growers in the area who eschew heft for freshness, incorporating the wind and sun to aid their organic viticulture. This was the way in the centuries before: lively, perfumed wines of restorative energy and a hedonistic drinkability.
The ‘Bel Soula’ is a revitalizing bottle of fragrant, delicately spiced, rose-petal-hued-but-not-quite-rosé wine, and with the estate gaining esteem, it might become an iconic ‘vin de soif’. From a parcel co-planted with Grenache & Carignan, and a little Syrah.
Location: France, Languedoc-Roussillon, Fitou
Winemaker: Céline Peyre & Alexandre Gressent
Grapes: Carignan, Grenache, Syrah
Winemaking: Organic farming. Hand harvest. Co-semi-carbonic maceration of Carignan and Grenache. 14 day maceration of Syrah with spontaneous yeast in tank. Fermented and aged in concrete, bottled unfined & unfiltered.
From us at M&L: Domaine Balansa begins in 2012 with Céline Peyre, who, after living in Paris, felt compelled to return to her roots: the family’s vineyard within the Hautes-Corbières AOC. Céline made the decision with her partner, Alexandre Gressent, in 2015 to take over the old vines and begin producing wine under her own label.
The dramatic sweeping hillsides at the property are home to plantings of 100-year-old Grenache, Carignan, and Syrah, biodynamically farmed across 14 hectares of hillside vines that the Peyre family have been stewards of for multiple generations. The area is known as Fitou Montagneux (mountainous Fitou), and is just uphill from the Etang de Leucate lagoon, directly between Perpignan and Narbonne. This is a romantic place - Mediterranean, sun-drenched and breezy, and Céline’s wines feel like a perfect reflection of this.
Whereas the modern inclination in the region has been toward extracted, voluminous, chewy red wine, Céline is part of a cadre of younger growers in the area who eschew heft for freshness, incorporating the wind and sun to aid their organic viticulture. This was the way in the centuries before: lively, perfumed wines of restorative energy and a hedonistic drinkability.
The ‘Bel Soula’ is a revitalizing bottle of fragrant, delicately spiced, rose-petal-hued-but-not-quite-rosé wine, and with the estate gaining esteem, it might become an iconic ‘vin de soif’. From a parcel co-planted with Grenache & Carignan, and a little Syrah.