Mataburro | Roussillon, France

Laurent Roger & Mélissa Ingrand

Mataburro means donkey killer in Catalan. It was the nickname of the little train that still runs behind Laurent Roger's vines at Rivesaltes, which killed two donkeys on its opening day in 1910. Laurent grew up among these vineyards, planted by his grandfather and worked by his father, long before he made wine of his own.

First he went to Paris, where he spent years pouring natural wine at Le Verre Volé. Then he learned to make it, with Alain Castex at Casot des Mailloles and Tom Lubbe at Matassa, two of the people who shaped natural wine in the Roussillon. In 2017 he came home with his wife Mélissa Ingrand and started again, buying back old family vines, among them the Macabeu his grandfather planted.

They farm a few hectares around Rivesaltes, on clay studded with rolled limestone pebbles, organically and without ploughing, with green cover growing between the rows. In the cellar the macerations are short and gentle, whole bunches with native yeasts, raised mostly in steel and fibreglass. Nothing is added, and nothing is fined or filtered.

The wines are the kind Laurent fell for behind the bar. Idoine is Merlot for every day, bright and easy. Mura Mura is a light, juicy rosé. Memo is skin-contact Macabeu from his grandfather's vines, and Otium is old-vine Grenache with depth but no heaviness. Guru, in magnum only, is Grenache Gris and Macabeu on skins from vines that once belonged to Alain Castex, a quiet tribute to the teacher who died in 2023.