Domaine St Sylvestre

The discovery of Vincent and Sophie Guizard’s vineyard lying at around 320 metres altitude in the wild and wooded hills to the northwest of Aniane is another source of excitement. The official appellation here may be the same as that for Mas de Chiméres, but the location and the soils are very different. This is a ‘terroir’ dominated by limestone and the ‘galets roulés’ that are so emblematic of Chateauneuf du Pape. Vincent learnt how to make wine by working for Olivier Julien, the man who remains for me the greatest winemaking talent of the Languedoc. It is clear that Vincent has also found the secret of achieving real delicacy as well as concentration without any trace of the rude rusticity that were the hallmark of most Languedoc wine as recently as a generation ago. The red wine is dominated by 70% syrah, with 20% grenache and 10% mourvedre. It is ready to drink when young but will surely age well too. An excellent white wine is produced from an equal mix of marsanne and roussanne with a small addition of viognier. The only problem so far is that the quantity available to us has been what we might call restricted, in that we were allowed a total of 18 bottles in our first shipment! The allocation for their red wine was a shade more generous.