A custom project made in partnership with Domaine J. Laurens.

In the years 1980, an expert from the Champagne region steeped in the tradition of refined, light sparkling wine understand the interest of Limoux's terroir : Michel Dervin decide to buy some vineyard in the area and start producing the well known Blanquette de Limoux. In 2002, Jacques Calvel, who was an entrepreneur in Switzerland, but native of Limoux and attracted by wines take over. Helped by Michel "savoir faire" and Henri Albrus, the winemaker, he decide to restructure the domain: vineyard and equipment in order to guarantee a high quality every year.
Vineyard: A stone's throw away from the famous city of Carcassonne, the domaine is located near the small village of La Digne d'Aval in the Autan terroir of Controlled label of origin (A.O.C.) Limoux. The property has a surface area of about 30 hectares with a 15 years aged vineyard in average. The grapes cultivated are the Mauzac (traditional grape variety for the AOC Limoux Blanquette) and the Chenin, both of them are cultivated on the slopes where the soil is granular and less fertile but regularly watered . The Chardonnay and the Pinot grapes are also cultivated but in the deeper, more fertile and well watered soil.
Autan terroir is sheltered from climatic influences from the east and the west by two small mountains ranges (Corbières and Chalabrais), in the heart of the appellation on the slopes surrounding Limoux, this terroir benefits from a hot dry climate with cool nights allowing the development of a grape completely healthy an mature with a characteristic freshness, ideal for sparkling wines.

AOC: Blanquette de Limoux was created in 1531 in the cellars of the Benedictine Saint Hilaire Abbey when a monk discovered that the wine that he had bottled and carefully corked formed bubbles, after a second fermentation. The first sparkling wine in the world had just been invented in this splendid abbey.
Historians have found texts dating from that period which mention "flascons de Blanquette" and during the XVII century, the Britains fell under the charm too, the English author George Farquhar wrote "Brut sparkles like the lively remarks of a man of wit".
Defined since 1929, the Limoux zone of production was the first to create a controlled label of origin in the Languedoc with Blanquette and Blanquette Méthode Ancestrale in 1938, both of them are elaborated with the traditional white grape variety of Limoux: Mauzac.
More recently, the decree published in 1990 added a new appellation: Crémant de Limoux and following a recent change at the decret, Cremant de Limoux is now produce with Chardonnay and Chenin. We can also add Mauzac and/or Pinot noir.

Sustainable Estate
Winemaker: Jacques Calvel / Henri Albrus