Les Abrigans La Jajathèque 2022

Les Abrigans is the project of Laura Lees and Arthur Joly, based in Villeneuve-les-Corbières in the Aude. Laura, who had been working for the French government, discovered a parcel of long-abandoned vines on two schist hillsides on the margins of the Corbières and bought it with her savings. The vineyards had been abandoned for six years, the slopes too steep and the work too demanding for anyone willing to take them on. Laura and Arthur cleared and restored them by hand, literally with pickaxes in places, and organized collective work parties to bring the vines back into production.

Their first vintage, produced in 2017 with support from Dominique Terrier of Dom & Terre, yielded just 1,112 bottles. That number has grown vintage by vintage as the couple have expanded their holdings, acquiring additional parcels across the hillsides around Villeneuve-les-Corbières for their grape varieties, their terroir, and their age. The estate now covers around 10 hectares of old vines — almost entirely on schist slopes — with a cellar in nearby Cascastel-des-Corbières. By 2022, the range had grown to nearly 20 different cuvées across red, white, rosé, and sparkling formats.

Farming across all parcels follows biodynamic principles: no synthetic inputs, animal grazing between vine rows (donkeys and Shetland ponies), green manure and plant-based preparations, biodynamic horn manure (preparation 500) applied each spring, with sulfur and copper used only sparingly as a last resort. In the cellar, all wines are made without additions of any kind. No fining, no filtration, no added sulfites.

La Jajathèque is the most approachable wine in the range — a deliberately light, fruit-forward red built for easy drinking, and named with the playful sensibility that runs through everything Les Abrigans does.

Discover more at our best-selling natural wines collection.

Corbières is a large and geologically varied wine appellation in the Aude department of Languedoc, in southern France. It covers some 13,000 hectares of vineyards spread across a rugged, often remote landscape of limestone plateaus, volcanic outcrops, schist hillsides, and river valleys between Narbonne and the Spanish border foothills. The appellation was granted AOC status in 1985 and is divided informally into distinct zones — Boutenac, Durban, Montagne d'Alaric, Lagrasse, and others — each with its own soil type and microclimate.

The area around Villeneuve-les-Corbières and Cascastel-des-Corbières, where Les Abrigans is based, sits in the heart of the Hautes-Corbières, the higher, wilder, and more remote southern reaches of the appellation. Elevations here typically range from around 500 to 1,300 feet, and the vineyards sit on steep slopes of schist that are largely impossible to work by machine. The schist soils — blue, red, and orange varieties, alongside ancient planktonic sedimentary deposits — drain freely, warm quickly in spring, and impose natural water stress on the vines through summer. This stress is a key factor in the low yields and concentrated flavors that characterize the best wines from the zone.

The dominant grapes of Corbières AOC are Carignan, Grenache Noir, Syrah, Mourvèdre, and Cinsault for reds and rosés, with Grenache Blanc, Bourboulenc, Maccabeu, Marsanne, Roussanne, and Vermentino for whites. Carignan, once dismissed as a bulk wine variety, is increasingly recognized here as the soul of the appellation when grown on old vines and handled carefully — particularly through the carbonic maceration technique, which tames its naturally high tannins and brings out its aromatic fruit character.

The Hautes-Corbières have attracted a small community of young, naturalistically minded producers who have revived abandoned vineyards, restored neglected schist slopes, and built a reputation for honest, minimally processed wine.