For a good while, Paul Old had his eye on a particular patch of Muscat. Slap bang in the middle of his biodynamically farmed Grenache Gris; the possibility of it falling into hands that might be trigger-happy with the sprays troubled him. So he took the plunge and bought it for himself.
It was more of an investment in his Grenache Gris - a parcel he picks for L'Extreme Blanc- expecting the wild boar in the hills to decimate that particular patch of Muscat as he'd seen them do most years. But in 2020, they had a change in appetite, and went for Paul's Grenache instead.
Good thing he'd bought that Muscat then.
Better yet for us that he decided to vinify it as the next installment of Project 108, a heady maceration of Muscat and what little was left of the Grenache Gris. Initially unsure what to do with it, he'd had great joy with getting the most out of floral varieties in the past: "if you can keep stripping away that lovely floral character, underneath you can get a really great expression of terroir" and decided to give a proper orange a go.
The plots here are south-west of the cellar in Corbieres, high up in the hills of Tautavel, in the Agly Valley, with views that are pretty breathtaking. Planted on high-acid rocky brown schist, conditions can become so windy it's impossible to stand upright whilst working in them.
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SKINS - CABIROU 2020 - MUSCAT, GRENACHE GRIS
Picked early and cool, the grapes macerated as whole bunches for 10 days, the steel tank slowly filling with juice. By the time it was basket pressed, a proper ferment was well under way.
Keen to keep the floral notes grounded, Paul let the juice become very oxidative at the beginning, then doing lots of battonage throughout fermentation, stirring up the gros lees right up until a week before bottling with no sulphur. The end result is a real joy to drink, pithy and textural but with just enough of those lifted aromatics to keep things fun: those wild boar don't know what they're missing.
For Paul, the Project 108 experiment continues to be an inspiring workshop that's beginning to help him flesh out his philosophy towards winemaking in general:
"If you're really clear, and honest about doing very little in the cellar - and stick to it - it can be incredibly liberating for a winemaker. Of course you need good intentions, in the growing and the making, but doing very little. If you're thoughtful and careful in the cave, you'll always going to get interesting results."
"It's been wonderful to be pulled onto a different circuit - my instinct with this Cabirou was to rack it, but the 108 rule is: leave it. It's making itself. So there's a wonderful purity there. With the human decisions removed, I can get out of the way. It's less me. There's a purity to the process that I'm finding very exciting."
