Les Escures
Producer Mas del Périé (Fabien Jouves)
Region Cahors, France
Grape Malbec
Geology Kimmeridgian limestone
Farming Biodynamic
Certifier Demeter (also Biodyvin)
Vintage 2024
Winemaker
Fabien Jouves is the fifth generation to farm his family's land at Trespoux, southwest of Cahors. He took over in 2006 converting the estate to biodynamics now certified Demeter and Biodyvin. Five years in Bordeaux taught Fabien to handle tannin; everything since has been about a delicate touch - preferring a purer more vibrant expression of Malbec. Fruit is picked and sorted by hand, fermented with indigenous yeasts, nothing added, bottled unfined and unfiltered. He makes two kinds of wine: vineyard specific terroir cuvées under his family estate Mas del Perie, and also his thirst quenching Vin de Soif wines which are also frehly tuned terroir wines. Fabien is one of the clearest voices in the new Cahors movement, with many a young winemaker taken under his wing for Biodynamic winemaking tutelage.
Where
Malbec is the variety rooted in Cahors, Southwest France. Most vines hug the hot valley floor of the Lot, on clay and gravel - wines that can often present as baked and extracted, requiring years in barrel. Mas del Périé sits higher, on the Causse above Trespoux. The soil here is not one thing. Clay and soft Quercy limestone permeable and quick to drain. Gravel in places, which brightens the fruit. Bands of sidérolithique (a pink tinted iron infused sand and clay) deepening the structure underfoot. Three hundred and fifty metres up, with cooler nights, providing a slower more protracted growing season.
Wine
This is Malbec built on chalk, not clay. Les Escures is a single vineyard on Kimmeridgian limestone - a very similar geology to that defining Chablis, surfacing here on the plateau. It does two things at once. It is pure: direct, focused, unmistakably Cahors, holding Malbec's distinctive deep inky colour the appellation is known for. Les Escures is drinkable now - it's a wine that's so fresh and alive it's ready to go. Though make no mistake, this is a serious wine that can develop with age, knocking off its bright edgy shoulders for a lithe blueberry smooth demure Cahors Malbec experience.