The name says it all: Domaine du Possible is Loic Roure's pledge to do whatever is possible to make the best wine while working with nature rather than against it. From a tiny village in the Agly valley, he has become one of the Roussillon's most quietly admired natural vignerons.
Backstory
Roure discovered natural wine during a stage with Thierry Allemand, whose Cornas is almost mythical. In 2003 he established his own estate by buying an old cooperative cellar in the village of Lansac, in the Pyrenees-Orientales. In response to years of punishing drought he later created a negociant arm, En attendant la pluie, to weather the collapse in yields.
The Region
The domaine lies in the Agly valley of the Roussillon, in France's deep south, a landscape of schist and old vines baked by the Mediterranean sun.
Vineyards and Farming
Roure farms about 10.5 hectares of classic Roussillon varieties, including Carignan, Grenache, Syrah, Mourvedre, Grenache Gris and Macabeu, some of the Carignan more than a century old. Herbicides and pesticides are banned entirely; the soils are worked by motorized cultivator, tracked machine or simply by pickaxe.
Winemaking
He works mostly with whole bunches, without destemming, using semi-carbonic maceration and spontaneous fermentation with indigenous yeasts. Sulfur, if used at all, is a homeopathic dose of under 10 mg per liter at bottling.
The Wines
The wines are frank and energetic, expressing the grape, the schist and the hand of the maker without barrier, a very personal vision of what the Roussillon can be.
