Blanc Magnum

The 2006 Blanc comes from Matassa's early years in Calce. Tom Lubbe had founded the domaine in 2003 with his wife Nathalie, and the first vintage was made in their living room until Gérard Gauby handed them his old cellar in 2004. The 2006 went out in the names of all three partners of those years: Tom and Nathalie Lubbe and Sam Harrop MW.

The wine is 70% Grenache Gris and 30% Macabeu from old vines on limestone marl and schist. The house describes 2006 as a warm, dry year with slow ripening, and picked between 10 and 26 August. The grapes were pressed gently in a basket press, and only the best of the juice was kept. It fermented on its native yeasts and was then aged in well-seasoned Burgundy barrels and a 500-litre demi-muid, with as little handling as possible on the way to bottle.

In a 2010 interview with his US importer, Louis/Dressner, Tom explained how he made his whites at the time. Whole bunches went into the basket press, and he trod the first half in with his feet to pack it tight, the way you pack coffee for an espresso. No sulphur went in until after the malolactic, and the Blanc spent 18 months in demi-muid.

The 2006 belongs to a Matassa that has since changed. Today every white is macerated on its skins, a path that began with Alexandria in 2008, and the domaine has added no sulphur since 2015. Tom credits cover crops with taking about two degrees of alcohol off his wines since the mid-2000s, and every wine now goes out as Vin de France, as the 2016 Blanc does, rather than under the Côtes Catalanes name this one carries.

A pressed white, made three harvests after the living room.