LANGUEDOC LIFE🏖️

Source note: This post is adapted from Parched's October 20, 2026 newsletter

Hey,

How’s things? We’re so back. Tastings galore on Monday, a winemakers lunch tomorrow and nice dinner resy tonight. This industry can be pretty good sometimes. The other half is all boxes and boring bits, so I’m enjoying it while I can… Literally as I was about to press send, our courier’s software has gone down, and I’m currently on hold along with half of their UK business customers. Hopefully it’s just a minor glitch and we’ll be back up to speed ASAP. I’ll keep you posted. Jinxed it, didn’t I?

Anyway, Last week I sat down to taste with a new UK importer. Tiny operation, just four growers, but every one being a producer at least one friend across the channel has been banging on about. I get so many emails and calls from people trying to flog me wine, and the quality is often well below mid, so it’s incredibly rare for me to be the one reaching out. I couldn’t resist. I thought we’d taste one or two wines. Quantities are pathetic (some cuvées only have 30-odd bottles allocated to the UK), so I was pleasantly surprised when nearly seven corks (including a few crown caps) were popped. You never know how these tastings will go, and perhaps I was caught in a good mood, but every wine was stunning.

The producer that really got me interested was Pierre Jancou. No two ways about it, this guy is a living legend for living wines. I’ve drunk these in Paris and I’ve always been floored by how uplifting they are despite their southerly origins.

Pierre is a former cook, restaurateur and wine merchant. In Paris he built Caves Miard into one of the city’s best addresses, then opened Racines in 2007, which won Le Fooding’s prize for best cave à manger within two months. Regarded as an extremist even in natural wine for his devotion to pure, unsulphured bottles, he also started the blog More Than Organic. He then moved south and ran the legendary Café des Sports in Padern, which he has since sold to focus on being a full-time vigneron.

His approach is about as artisanal as it gets, hence the name “only grapes”. No added sulphites, semi-carbonic maceration, and ageing in demijohns and amphorae. He buys organic grapes from winemaking friends, notably De Mena, and farms two hectares of Carignan and Marsanne between Padern and Cucugnan, plus a newly leased hectare in Maury.

In the summer of 2026, tragically, Pierre was the victim of arson at both his cellar and shortly after his home. Clearly some locals don’t like someone trying to do something positive, going against the grain in these more traditional parts. It’s heartbreaking, especially when he has done so much for the local community. He lost practically all his stock, and only one of his 2026 fermentations survived the blaze. With the help of friends he still plans to release a special cuvée, and he’s staying put in the village, refusing to give the people responsible any satisfaction. There’s a GoFundMe page here if you’d like to support him.

Please go nuts for Schlückli, might be the last few bottles we have in the UK for some time. It’s fresh despite the colour and varieties, with glorious spiced strawberry fruit. I know this far south you’d expect things to be heavy and cloying but this is just anything but. It’s a delight to drink. Seeing only glass demijohn, I doubt you’ll find a purer expression of the Languedoc. It might be “only grapes”, but they’re bloody good. Just 12 bottles up for grabs…

Alongside this, we have the much-hyped Ferme du Pasteur, with a single, but dazzling cuvée. Caroline and Rémy Kaneko settled on two hectares in Saint-Maurice-sur-Eygues, near Nyons, in 2021. Rémy is a former sculptor and was one half of the pair behind the popular Chambre Noire in Paris. They returned to his parents’ olive farm and now make small quantities of wine alongside the olives, with nothing added, not even sulphur. The 85-year-old vines sit on the slopes of Saint-Maurice, on clay-calcareous soils covered in galets roulés, the large pebbles typical of the region. The younger vines, 25 years old, are directly above on a terrace of the same texture. This is an utterly spellbinding infusion of Grenache. At once ethereal and bright, with an almost Syrah-like spice. Hard to put down. L’anglore esque, in it’s ethereal nature.

Another newbie down south is Maison Virido. Matteo is only 28, but was one of my standout discoveries from the hectic Salons in the Loire. He did his BTS in the Jura before heading back south to work in the skilled cellar and beautifully tended vineyards of Les Frères Soulier. He’s slowly acquiring small plots around the Gard and is a very experimental vigneron. Production is tiny, often just a barrel or two. Nothing added, nothing removed. Cellar work is completely manual and solely by gravity, with wines aged in barrels and rarely topped up so as to allow micro-oxygenation to do its work. Few discoveries have left me as excited as these wines. Alive and addictive. Sadly, there are just 30 bottles of each for the whole UK, so you’ll need to be quick to secure your stash.

The Viognier is the most drinkable expression of the grape I’ve ever tasted. It has actual verticality, acidity and drinkability. Never thought I’d see the day. The Grenache Blanc shows bright but bruised fruit, with that calling card of micro-oxidation adding extra salt and spine. There’s also a delightful direct press of Alicante Bouschet, a rare teinturier grape, meaning it has pigmented juice as well as skin. Even without a proper soak, we still get a gorgeous colour. It’s fluid and juicy, blood orange-like, and again full of southern character without anything weighing it down. It glides.

This is the first time any of these wines have reached UK shores. I really hope we see more, because I’m currently planning on doing some serious damage personally. Sorry for the long one. I just love wine. Hope you love reading.

Bisou
Fionn
xoxo