The Story:

Sometimes sticking with tradition in a fast moving era makes you positively avant-garde. That’s what you could say of Lou Belvestit, a small, family run domaine going back to the 19th Century where the emphasis is on making great wine from traditional grapes in a such a traditional way that it’s now a positive outlier amongst its neighbours.

The hectares under cultivation may be small, but (as is typical of the Côtes de Thongue) the geology chops and changes: stony at one point, then clay limestone, then stony again, and so on; the family have planted a variety of vines according to each patch of soil.

The king of the vines is Roland Alauze, the father; the queen of the cellar is Emily Alauze, his daughter, and between them they produce a terrific range at great value prices. They are now benefitting from the foresight of Roland’s grandfather, who selected vines for particular parcels of land around the time of the war and these are still going strong today; indeed, these heroically gnarled, somewhat fragile octogenerian aramon and carignan vines are delivering wines with frankly gorgeous flavours. (You can spot the Mas Belvestit parcels from their neighbours, because they always use single bushes (“gobelets”) rather than trellising: Roland says it improves the health of the vines and increases shade, which is both traditional but, paradoxically, of extra value given global warming). Harvesting takes place by hand, and all their efforts go towards preserving their natural heritage.

All their range is worth a try, but I’m picking out five.

• Their white (Lou Belvestit – Blanc) is essentially led by the increasingly rare carignan blanc grape, grown – with providential neatness - in the parcel of land with the lightest, chalkiest soil, and gives a nose of peaches. Worth a go (price band B).

• Their rosé (Lou Belvestit – Rosé) is easy, pretty and terrific value (price band A).

• More original is a gorgeous aramon (simply called ‘Aramon – Lou Belvestit’  (price band A)), a traditional Languedoc grape which largely got torn up from the region fifty years ago. It takes a long time for aramon vines to get interesting, but as these are mostly seventy years old, they are now delivering something magical: a mix of garrigue and fruit that’s both light in colour and naturally low in alcohol (12%). Indeed, it is so light in colour that the French authorities haven’t given it permission for IGP status because it isn’t as deeply coloured as red wine ‘should be’, hence it is sold as ‘Vin de France’, a typically ludicrous piece of French bureaucratic madness; when so many people are looking for red wines which aren’t too strong, this is a brilliant answer, that doesn’t rely on intervention in the cellar to lower the strength. Scarcely believable price for something this good.

• Going up the chain, their 100% carignan, ‘Maem’ is dangerously easy to drink, but with some depth, and shows what grace old vine carignan is capable of (Price band B).

• Their single varietal syrah ‘Roem’ (Price Band C) is syrah at its most loveable, with a fantastic purity of fruit. It’s from one parcel of vineyard that delivers a particular flavour and this is lovely.  It is a ‘vin de garde’.