Fabien Jouves Amphore

“When you work naturally in the vineyard and the winery, the wine is truly the embodiment of a winemaker’s emotion, there is magic!” Following this premise, Fabien Jouves, the youngest member of a winemaking family with an estate on the Trespoux slopes, at the highest point of Cahors (up to 350 m altitude), took over the estate in 2006 and, under the name Mas del Périé, he began to produce his own wines using biodynamic practices (Biodyvin/Demeter certified). A member of Renaissance des Appellations, an organisation that aims to ensure the full expression of terroir, he is part of a new generation of winemakers who are revolutionising the sector in south-west France with some pleasingly successful iconoclastic wines.

With the aim of showcasing the noble Malbec variety, he has made Fabien Jouves Amphore. This variety is difficult to master but, when well cultivated, it provides unrivalled elegance and delicacy. Made from a selection of plots of land that Fabien considers to be the most distinctive, with predominantly calcareous clay soils, he uses organic agriculture, taking into account the influence of the stars and the rhythms of nature and uses homeopathic plant preparations to rebalance and revitalise the vine.

Once the grapes have been harvested by hand, as the name of the Fabien Jouves Amphore wine indicates, it is vinified in 100 to 800 litre amphoras. These containers are made from ferruginous limestone found at 350 metres above sea level. Fermentation takes place spontaneously with native yeasts and then rests on its own lees before bottling, without clarifying or filtering and with less than 30 mg of SO2.

Fabien Jouves Amphore is a superb wine from one of the current leading domaines in Cahors. A natural Malbec that, following the Burgundy model both in the selection of plots, in the long fermentations on lees and even in the shape of the bottle, is pure magic.