Domaine de la Tasque, 'Appia', Vin de France 2020

Juliet Bruce-Jones MW and Simon Ingman are the husband and wife team behind Domaine La Tasque, a small estate at Maillhac in the north-west of Minervois. The couple moved to Minervois in 2004 and Juliet established a wine broking business exporting Languedoc wines to the UK where she had worked for a number of years in the wine trade, including a stint as buyer here at The Wine Society. It was never their intention to become winemakers themselves but in 2011 they were tempted by the potential of a parcel of syrah vines near their home, bought them and the die was cast. Shortly after that they acquired a plot of old carignan vines and in 2014 their maiden vintage was made.

The syrah vineyard is limestone and clay with grey sandstone. The clay allows the unirrigated vines to access retained water, an important factor here in the deep south of France. The vines are over 20 years old now. In the carignan vineyard the vines are much older at more than 60 years-of-age. They are pruned as bush vines growing in similar soils to the syrah, which is only 100 metres or so away. Owning only 2 hectares means that they can pay close attention to the vines, working by hand, including harvesting the grapes. They farm according to organic principles, though they haven't sought certification, and no chemicals are used at all. Juliet takes care of the winemaking and anything more on the mechanical side is Simon's domain, and they work together out among the vines.