Les Cargadous 2020

• Saline and textured: olive fried rice or steamed fish with preserved vegetable.
• Or a fish baked in salt, with good oil poured over at the table.

Clos de la Barthassade takes its name from bartàs, the Occitan word for the scrub that grows wild on the hills around Aniane. Hélène and Guillaume Baron bought their first vines here in 2013, at the foot of the Larzac plateau, and made their first vintage the following year.

They met studying wine in Dijon and learned their craft in Burgundy and Provence, Guillaume with Dominique Derain and at Domaine de Trévallon, Hélène with Sylvain Pataille in Marsannay. Then they came south to find vines of their own.

Those vines, most of them around forty years old, are spread across Montpeyroux, Jonquières and Saint-Saturnin, on terraces of clay and limestone scree: sandier in some places, crowded with stones in others. They farm organically, as much by hand as they can, follow the biodynamic calendar for some of the work, and keep yields low.

The cellar is patient. Native yeasts, whole bunches for the reds when the stems are ripe, and no sulphur at all until the malolactic is done. The wines rest in large demi-muids, old barrels, concrete eggs and steel, and go into bottle unfined and unfiltered.

Racine carries three of them. Les Cargadous is an unusual white of Roussanne and Chenin, textured and saline. Les Gravettes is Grenache-led Terrasses du Larzac, spiced and fresh, and Les Ouvrées brings Syrah and Mourvèdre together for something darker that rewards a little time.