2020 Ollier Taillefer - Faugeres Grand Reserve (750ml)

Domaine Ollier-Taillefer sits in the villages of Faugères and Fos, the highest vineyards in the appellation at up to 350 meters, in the far northeastern corner of the delimited zone. Siblings Luc and Françoise Ollier now run the estate their parents built, bottling their first wine together in the mid-1970s, before their marriage, when he was still an Ollier and she a Taillefer, following four generations of family growers in the region. Luc joined the domaine in 1990 and steered its viticulture onto a sustainable path a decade later, while Françoise came aboard in 2003 after eleven years leading the local Faugères growers' syndicate. Some of their oldest vines, a parcel of Carignan planted by their great-grandparents in 1910, still feed directly into this wine.

Faugères is built entirely on schist, an acidic rock that paradoxically produces low-acid wine, with the estate's high elevation helping preserve balance between ripe fruit and moderate alcohol. This Grande Réserve blends Carignan, Grenache, and Syrah from vines including that century-old parcel, aged entirely in tank rather than wood to let the fruit and schist minerality speak clearly, with time on the fine lees adding texture.

The wine shows black olive, thyme, sage, and sea salt alongside black cherry, black currant, plum, and tobacco. The palate is rounded, smoky, and mineral, finishing with an almost tactile sense of licking black stone. It pairs well with grilled meats, lamb, or game.