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Decanter Magazine / Online

Panel Tasting Roussillon Reds

Le Soula Rouge, Terroir d'Altitude 2014 IGP Côtes Catalanes

RG 96 AH 95 FM 100

Le Soula produces wines at high altitude in the Fenouillèdes region of the Roussillon. The domaine has a total of 22ha planted at 350m – 600m, with some of the oldest vines back to 1919, farmed on biodynamic principles. Le Soula red is old vine Carignan, Syrah and Grenache Noir, naturally fermented and aged for 22 months in different vessels.

RG Subtle oak, quite complex cedar and spice. Nice freshness, good acidity and evident tannins suggesting this will improve for several years in bottle. Has an engaging ‘natural’ feel to it. Unforced and highly drinkable. Great finesse and respect for the terroir here.

AH Developed colour. Elegant ethereal nose, and mature with some cedary fruit. Has aged beautifully.

FM Incredible spices, tenderness, a delicious and romantic wine.

97 points

Drink 2022-2025 Alc 12,5%

 

Great orange wines for autumn September 28th 2021

Le Soula, La Macération du Soula N°19, Vin de France

A blend of 76% Vermentino and 24% Macabeu from vines grown on decomposed granitic soils. The burnished colour, structure and textural grip come from two weeks’ whole-bunch maceration. No fining and minimal filtration, so there’s a slight haze. It’s a fascinating wine, perfumed and floral, with pronounced mandarin citrus and red apple skin notes, plus some soft spice. Reminiscent of white Rhône, this is a great choice for pairing with strongly flavoured dishes.

93 points

Drink 2021 – 2023

https://www.decanter.com/decanter-best/great-orange-wines-for-autumn-12-to-try-465736/


An Interview by Lisse Garnett and Jamie Goode with Mark Walford, for the Wine Anorak Global Wine Journal website.

They discuss Mark's wine roots, starting Le Soula, the Rousillon, Catalan culture, managing vines organically and biodynamically and the terroir of Le Soula.Please click on the link below to read the full article and tasting notes.

https://wineanorak.com/2022/01/05/visiting-the-roussillon-2-the-northern-roussillon-maury-the-aude-fenouilledes-and-the-agly-valley/

 


Webinar with Thorman Hunt

Thorman Hunt, our English importer hosted a webinar with Mark Walford and Wendy Wilson in March 2021. Discussing all things Le Soula. Please watch the 50 minute video for more infomation.

 

Tamlyn Currin for Jancis Robinson (https://www.jancisrobinson.com/)

Le Soula, La Macération du Soula N°19, Vin de France

Farmed without synthetic chemicals. A blend of roughly three-quarters Vermentino and one-quarter old-vine Macabeu. Hand-harvested. Whole-bunch maceration for 10 to 15 days, spontaneous fermentation. Blend of vintages and aged in barrels and glass, unfined, unfiltered.

Very slightly cloudy, pale amber-gold. When I tasted this wine in 2020, I totally lost my heart. I've tasted and re-tasted this bottle, six months later, and I don't want to take one word away, or add one word. OK, because I have verbiage issues, I will say more. This is a stunning wine to just sip: sip while you're watching the sun set, sip while warming your hands to open-fire flames, sitting on freshly mown grass, sitting with your feet in a cold pebbly stream. But it is also one of those wines that almost magnetically seeks the companionship of food. It was gorgeous with biltong. It was absolutely spine-tinglingly gorgeous with subtle spice curries, with lamb cooked with orange juice and apricots, and OMG with Bryant Terry's utterly addictive dirty cauliflower and tempeh. If I were a sommelier, I could not not have this wine on my list. Every time I taste it, I rush to my kitchen and cook. Every time I taste it, I feel alive.

- 13% Drink 2021 - 2024

 

Le Soula Blanc, Terroir d'Altitude 2016 IGP Côtes Catalanes

I tasted this six months ago, and it's a wine that defines Roussillon. Its wildness; its utter defiance; its dance of honey and herbs, bronze and petrichor, metal and rocks; its head-tossing beauty. This is a wine that tastes of dawn spilling silent light over mountains. It's a wine that tastes of cold wind blowing through wild fennel and over scree in those dark-blue moments just after the sun has set. It's a wine that tastes of time lost. You cannot taste this wine unless you approach it with your whole, open heart.

- 13% Drink 2022 – 2030.

 

Le Soula Rouge, Terroir d'Altitude 2018 IGP Côtes Catalanes

Certited organic, certited biodynamic. Unfiltered. Old-vine Carignan, Syrah and Grenache on mostly granite with some schist. Spontaneous fermentation. Whole- bunch maceration for 12–15 days. Aged just under two years in used wooden vats, demi-muids and tank.

Farm and well-used, supple riding leather. Meatiness and juniper, dried cherries pressed into ancient wooden pews, rose petals blown into sumac, dried blood, rust. So fine it's almost fragile, and yet it builds up with a roar of defiance and wildness at the back of the throat. You'd taste this and think it was over 14%, the strength and smoky-chilli heat of the wine is so insistent. And then you notice the butterfly-wing transparency, the carpaccio melt of the texture… Cool, like paper- thin slices of biltong and granite dipped in a mountain stream, tucked under a mossy rock. A wine that marches off-road to the beat of a fairy drum. Day five of being open: high, rose-petaled perfume. This really does smell like an old- fashioned rose garden in the evening. Perfumed spices, almost Middle Eastern in fragrance and complexity. The fruit is super-fine, almost nothing more than a caress on the palate, a sable-hair paintbrush dipped in rose water, rust, dried blood and raspberry juice; a streak of sunrise across parchment bleeding into the fabric of the paper.

- 12.5% Drink 2020 – 2028.

Le Soula Rouge, Terroir d'Altitude 2014 IGP Côtes Catalanes

Carignan, Syrah, Grenache. Spontaneous fermentation, aged in old wood, unfined and unfiltered.

When first opened, this smelt of cherry tobacco and sous bois. Four days later it smells exquisitely of dried rose petals, rose hips, first-flush mountain oolong, truffles. Soaring grace notes of lavender and apple mint. This is a wine with such a quiet centre, holding it in your mouth is like walking into a small, round, stone chapel deep in a mountain forest, where the only sound is pine needles dropping on carpets of pine needles; where you can hear the light falling through the leaves and the dust suspended in the air. The tannins are so breathtakingly fine, yet so present, like the finest cashmere silk torn around ancient driftwood. It tastes of cherries, of mint, of Victoria-plum skin, of forest earth on ruby watch glass, of tamari umami and nori iodine. And on the finish, the spices fill your senses like vespers.

- 12.5% Drink 2020 – 2030