Project 108
winemaker
Paul Old
TYPE OF AGRICULTURE
Organic certified
VINEYARD AREA
1 ha
Country, Region, Subregion
A harvest visit to Daniel Ham & Hugo Stewart in the summer of 2020 yielded at least one surprise, our introduction to Paul Old’s Project 108. Hugo & Paul started the Corbières located Les Clos Perdus together in 2003; with half a hectare of old-vine Carignan. 12 years later the biodynamic domaine had grown to 20 hectares and Hugo returned home to the UK, with Paul staying to continue the operation.
Having left Australia to work as a dancer in London, Paul had been looking for a new career as his “body began to fall apart.” Always enthusiastic about wine, he was reluctant to trade his beloved hobby for a profession, but a chance visit to a friend in Corbieres showed him the potential of the old vines being torn up across the region. Deciding there and then to use the dancer’s resettlement funds to retrain as a winemaker in Australia, he made his way back to Corbieres to begin his life-long love affair with old vine Carignan.
Over a harvest supper, Hugo had opened for us Paul’s first bottling of his new side-project, a zero-sulphur blend of old vine Carignan & Mourvedre picked in 2018. By Paul’s definition, Les Clos Perdus- whilst being certified biodynamic and only ever using minimal amounts of SO2- was not natural. Determined to produce a true “zero-zero” wine, Project 108 was born.
Grapes are purchased from close friends and neighbours working organically, processes in the winery are as low-intervention as possible. 2018 saw Paul bottle an old-vine Carignan/Mourvedre blend. In 2019 he focused his energies into a 100 year old Carignan, and in 2020 he has produced a long, slow maceration Muscat/Macabeu. The 2019 & 2020 will be bottled in late-spring 2021.
For any UK wholesale and stock enquiries, please contact hello@winesutb.com
Wines
More on Project 108
Begins as a brooding, animal red with a black-olive core, before opening up to a bright, blackcurrant-packed number.