L’Anglore Tavel Vintage

Eric Pfiffierling met Jean-François Nicq (natural wine producer at Domaine les Foulards Rouge, in the Pyrenees-Orientales region) in the early 1990s. At that time, Jean-François Nicq was a winemaker at the Estézargues winegrowers’ winery (in the A.O.C. Tavel, southeast France) and Pfiffierling, who was selling the grapes he grew, met him there. They used to meet to drink wine: one day at one of their houses, another day at the other’s house. But there was something very different about their meetings: the typical next-day headaches and stomach aches didn’t appear when they drank natural wines at Nicq’s house. Eric Pfiffierling quickly realised this and stopped selling his grapes so that he could start making his own wine with the aim of achieving the same quality as the ones he enjoyed at Nicq’s house.

This is how Domaine l'Anglore came to be, lying on the right bank of the Rhône (between the Pont d'Avignon and the Pont du Gard). It has been operating since 2000. During that time, the wines from this Domaine have become more and more popular.

One of those wines is L'Anglore Tavel Vintage, a red wine made from grapes from vines aged over 70 years old, selected from different plots and naturally cultivated without trying to force nature. Eric Pfiffierling is assisted by his wife Marie, his two sons and his daughter. L'Anglore Tavel Vintage is made naturally in the Domaine l'Anglore cellar, following the principles of minimal intervention, avoiding industrial processes and allowing the varieties and the terroir to speak. Finally it ages for more than a year in 600-litre demi-muids.

The A.O.C. Tavel, where L'Anglore Tavel Vintage comes from, is known throughout the world for its good quality rosés. “We are not making rosé. It is actually more like a clear red wine. But the rosé that people drink now is not wine. So maybe we need to change the whole definition of rosé. The concept has become very twisted” explains Thibault Pfifferling in a report for Sprudge. These wines, and especially L'Anglore Tavel Vintage, are without doubt the best way to get to know the essence of this denomination.