The year 2000….
It is very difficult for a child today to imagine what these magic words meant fifty years ago.
Children of the post-war period, this time was referred to as that of a heavenly future, embodying for us the very notion of technological progress, symbolizing an ideal world, the orange-coloured world of which Aragon spoke, a “modern” world where nothing would be the same as before, a world where we would be freed from our heaviness and limitations, our pettiness and our contingencies…
The end of the 90s embodied for many French winegrowers a period when everything seemed possible and as far as we were concerned, freed from our southern winegrower complexes, leaving the Banyulenc enclave, we left some of La Rectorie to explore the northwest of Roussillon, taking us away from the Mediterranean shore, in order to establish a “foundation”.
The Hautes Corbières du Roussillon as they were called until 1972, sheltered a small village and a cellar to the south of a plateau overlooking the village of Maury, which would welcome us after a successful experience at the Cave Coopérative de Maury for the 2000 vintage; during these harvests we elaborated on behalf of the cellar a red wine vinification trial with a view to a future AOC on this terroir which at the time only produced natural sweet wine. Vincent Legrand was in charge and deployed his customary energy to bring this project to a successful conclusion.
Thanks to this experience, the team of La Rectorie reinforced by a young winegrower and two more experienced winegrowers, we acquired in July 2001 the cooperative cellar of St Arnac in order to establish a winemaking site in the fennellèdes, near the Maury cru. There, we sought to experiment with what made this Maury terroir so special by applying the same requirements and discipline as ours at Domaine de La Rectorie. For ten years we have tried both in the vineyard and in the cellar, with modest means, to make this great mute that is the terroir speak! Once again, as in La Rectorie, the absence of means was our guide, the absence of a guru our credo!