Languedoc Prieuré St-Jean de Bébian 2012

Lot presentation

Languedoc Prieuré St-Jean de Bébian 2012

The wine

Prieuré Saint Jean de Bébian offers an intense, complex nose, with notes of blackberries, liquorice, violets, pepper and cocoa. The palate develops voluptuous flavours of mild spices on a background of black olives, and a lovely rich, velvety structure, supported by fine, elegant tannins. A superb, powerful, smooth, refined Mediterranean wine that promises to age well.

Perfectly located on slopes that constitute the foothills of the Cevennes, the vineyard was founded in the first century under Emperor Augustus and serves today as an excellent ambassador for the thriving Languedoc wine region. On 28 plots that are well-oriented to the south or south-west, the property produces both a white and a red wine, but it is on the basis of the red that it has built its reputation. In 1975, the owner Alain Roux breathed new life into the vineyard by planting some "thoroughbreds" (Syrah, Grenache, Mourvèdre), and Châteauneuf-du-Pape's 13 traditional varieties (Rousanne, Marsanne, Clairette, etc.), while at the same time taking care to preserve the old Mediterranean varieties of Cinsault and Carignan. In 1994, the Prieuré was purchased by Chantal Lecouty and Jean Claude Le Brun, former directors of the Revue de France magazine, who continued the work initiated by Alain Roux for the next fifteen years. They adopted a sustainable agriculture approach (with no chemical fertilizers) and harvested the grapes at their maximum possible ripeness, picking them two weeks later than the usual start of the harvests in the Languedoc. Vinified separately from each other, the various grape varieties are then aged - still separately - for 6 to 18 months in oak barrels, one third of which are renewed each year, with minimal toasting to avoid excessive woody aromas.