Yannick Pelletier Pennard

This is not the first time a wine merchant has felt more drawn to the way wine is made rather than sold and, knowing the market as well as he does, he was keen to create his own wines. But for Yannick Pelletier, his conversion was more revealing. This former salesman from Lyon saw the light when he visited the Domaine Léon Barral vineyards, in Languedoc, and went on an early journey with the great vigneron Didier Barral, a native of the area. Without thinking about trends, sales or the success of the business, his winery started from the idea of creating a range of honest, balanced and slightly wild wines that speak for themselves of the extensive and, at the same time, not very well known wine region of Languedoc-Roussillon.

With a property of 12.5 hectares in the village of Saint-Chinian, he makes curious wines like this Yannick Pelletier Pennard, a coupage of Garnacha Tinta, Carignan, Syrah and Cinsault from old vines planted on varied schist, clay and limestone soils and granitic gravels. All cultivation is organic and most of the work is done by hand, because this means it is more thorough than if it were done mechanically, and because it avoids using tractors that squash the soil. In the winery, winemaking is carried out following the principles of minimal intervention and maximum intuition. Partially destemmed clusters, native yeasts and no added sulphites. For production, the wine is made using the Solera system with a blend of three vintages and then aged in cement tanks.

The result is Yannick Pelletier Pennard, a juicy and charmingly endearing blend that puts a face and eyes to the quality wines of the South of France. Undoubtedly a wine that doesn’t conform at all to the standards of commercial wines, but it is receiving a very warm welcome among the great wine experts.