Grange des Peres-Vin de Pays L’Herault 2013 (Laurent Vaille)

Attaining cult wine status is not an easy feat, and certainly not when the odds are stacked against you. Laurent Vaille has achieved what others thought impossible. Having spent his early career training under such masters as Jean-Franis Coche-Dury (Meursault), Geard Chave (Hermitage), and Eloi Durrbach (Domaine Trallon, Provence), he settled in the l ault of the Languedoc and purchased his own land in 1989, near Aniane. In this area of the region, where the limestone is hard and abundant and the soil poor, no one thought he would ever have any success planting a vineyard on his plot of choice. Though it took dynamite and bulldozing to clear twice the amount of limestone, boulders, and glacial scree that is found in neighboring vineyards, he found a great terroir for his grapes. He did not have to look far to find ideal bud wood, either. He sourced his Syrah, Marsanne, and Roussane cuttings from Gard Chave and his Cabernet from Domaine Trallon. Laurent South-facing vines get very low yields, normally from twenty to twenty-five hectoliters per hectare. All are pruned in the gobelet style. The simultaneous restraint and power of his wines makes them ideal for aging. As for the skeptics, they are currently eating their words. His area of the Languedoc has since become known to produce some of the greatest wines in the region, with the new appellation of Terrasses du Larzac, of which he is technically part, reaping attention and praise. In his words, ature gave us a partition of land. It is up to us to interpret it.