The Wine Advocate | RP 91
Published: Aug 31, 2011

The Cal Demoura 2007 Coteaux du Languedoc Terrasses du Larzac Feu Sacre represents once again a single parcel of old Grenache vines (mingled with a few of other, un-specifiable cepages). Black raspberry and strawberry mingle with sandalwood and diverse tobaccos as well as a medicinal amalgam of iodine and bittersweet herbal concentrate, for a rich aromatic and palate display. Saturated with fine-grained tannin; both seductively fruity and densely structured for a decade or more of integrity; this finishes with impressive yet velvet-gloved grip. (No Feu Sacre was bottled from 2008, and Goumard was not yet ready to show the 2009 at the time of my April visit.)

Vincent Goumard – for more about whose estate and methods, consult my account in issue 183 – has more than merely fine-tuned his approach in both the vineyard and cellar. Among the significant changes are an ongoing organic conversion; the introduction of a sorting table with the 2008 vintage; and the harvest of Carignan earlier and at lower alcohol for what Goumard calls “a complete change in the expression of this cepage,” strikingly evident amid the exciting raw materials for the estate’s 2010s. “After fermentation of the 2010 Syrahs, you thought you were in the Northern Rhone,” says Goumard, and the effusively floral and illusively carnal evidence remained abundant when I tasted from barrel in April.