Sylvain Fadat and his wife Désirée both have an obsession with vines and terroir. They founded their domain in Montpeyroux, some thirty kilometres north-west of Montpellier, a little over twenty years ago. Their 22-hectare vineyards are planted on two very different terroirs: the south-west-facing terraces of the Aupilhac lieu-dit, and the Les Cocalières site – higher, and therefore cooler – where Syrah is so much at home, and therefore dominates. The northernmost part is home to white grapes (Roussanne, Marsanne, Grenache Blanc and Rolle). Here, both the landscape and the wines have been shaped by human hands; ploughing, manual harvesting, minimal intervention, bottling without filtration: everything possible is done to preserve the identity of the terroir as much as possible.

Complex and persistent, le Montpeyroux benefits from a terroir of limestone scree and blue marl in the domain’s historic home of Aupilhac. Each variety is barrel-aged separately for one year in old wood and is then blended with other varieties and barrel-aged again for another year. The slow ageing process continues in the bottle as the wines are not immediately released onto the market. The wine has a subtly spicy nose and is powerful and tannic, with wonderful length on the palate.