The Blog Squad

2007 Domaine La Florane Cotes du Rhone Terre Pourpre Visan

Adrien Fabre’s 2007 “Terre Pourpre,” is drawn from a single stone-riddled parcel set at 1200 feet in elevation where 70-year-old head-trained Grenache flourishes. The clay beneath the moonscape is blue/black (hence “Purple Earth”). The wine? Just now coming into its own. This 2007, which had been sitting back on its heels, is now deep, dark purple, chiseled. The small berry aromatics are packed with red fruit, tinged with the herbes de Provence that seem to grow wild all over Visan. Packed with beautifully concentrated fruit, yet still begging for oxygen or a lengthy stay in a cool cellar. The finish? Pure Visan. Long, sweet, irrepressible.

We got to Adrien Fabre on the recommendation of Julien Barrot, the wunderkind Chateauneuf winemaker who has already posted more 99 wines in a few years than most of his neighbors post in a lifetime. When we got to Visan, the idyllic, garrigue-coated village a half hour north of Julien’s place, we knew immediately why Barrot had sent us to Fabre. Their young winegrower smiles were the same. As was their infectious laughter. But most importantly, the ingeniously energetic pair shared a common inventive fascination for their vines.