Les Conques ‘Nonette’ Ancestral Rouge 2022
Location: France, Languedoc-Roussillon
Winemaker: Francois Douville
Grapes: Mourvèdre
Soil: Clay, schist, sand, marble
Winemaking: Fermented in whole clusters in stainless steel. Unfined, unfiltered and bottled under crown cap with no SO2. Méthode ancestrale. NOTE: this is real deal, classic Frizzante - more effervescent than “bubbly”
From the Importer Super Glou: ‘Nonette’ is a lightly effervescent Mourvèdre that marries juicy dark red fruits, delicate tannins and an earthy crunch on the finish. Think Lambrusco, but French Catalunya.
To understand the wines of François Douville, it is helpful to imagine flying through the clouds and peering down at the patchwork of peaks and valleys that constitute the Pyrénées-Orientales. Train your lens on the magnificent Mount Canigou (Canigó in Catalan) and follow the long shadow it casts on the vines of Les Conques, nine hectares of grapes sprawled across twenty hectares of wilderness. Zoom in on a figure hunched between the rows, and you’ll wonder if it’s a bear lingering lovingly in the vines, having a relaxing lunch. It is in fact Francois, a self-described ours, a Catalan bear trailed by his mule Amandine and his dog Métis.
François is of another era, suspended in time and place between the Roussillon and Catalunya. His habitat is a place of shifting identities, bounded more by Mediterranean sensibilities than geographical borders. Like a bear lumbering through thickets of garrigue, François is happiest enveloped in nature. His shyness is endearing, and he is quick to mention he prefers the company of his vines, his mule, his dog, his wife Magalie and their children above all else. And yet, François speaks with such elegance, you’d think he spent his days conversing with poets and philosophers instead of animals and insects. He is a generous penpal; his dispatches read like this:
“I'm more talkative in my message today, because it finally rained (we've been in drought since last spring), so I stayed in the office. It's harder for me to be talkative when I'm pruning…tired from the day and the wind, I become a bear (careful, I repeat: the Pyrenées bear is very different from the US bear, nobody ever meets our bears, which are very discreet and live hidden in the mountains).”
His wines are missives, too, brimming with quiet intensity while maintaining the opulence we often associate with Roussillon. His whites are lush yet remain deft and bright. His pet’nat mimics frizzante reds (in the vein of a Côtes du Roussillon Lambrusco), and his Rivesaltes balances gentle sweetness with generous structure.
These are wines that encourage us to be inquisitive, to redraw our own borders in our heads, and focus on the soul of the thing.