Les Parcelles Petillantes Obscure 2020

“It felt like the stars aligned,” Bruno Trigueiro smiles when asked about the moment in his life when his brother-in-law approached him with the idea of taking care of a wine estate in France he wanted to invest in. At the time, the current winemaker and co-owner of Chemins de Bassac was suffering from severe migraines and, aided by an anthroposophical doctor, started to consider a change of lifestyle from the busy Sao Paolo architect routine that he and his wife Thama were living. A healthier and more holistic option materialized in 2016, when the couple took their two young daughters and moved to Puimisson, a small village close to the Mediterranean coast, to take care of the newly purchased Chemins de Bassac.“ I visited other domains too, but this one was the perfect fit: certified organic, the right size we were looking for, with a cellar well in place. And we also liked the fact that, unlike the areas in France where a certain status quo is established, Languedoc is way more dynamic, open to new things,” Bruno explains. After a couple of years of transition and learning from the previous owners, Bruno and Thama took complete control over all things vine and wine in 2019. “I see that as the true ‘first vintage’ for us because that’s when the vineyards became Demeter-certified and we really started to make wine our way.” Their arrival indeed marks a whole new era for this respectable old domain (established in the late 19th century, practicing organic since the 1980s): the adventurous one where no enological preparations or additives, save for a little bit of sulfur, are used. It’s not an easy path, Bruno admits, especially for someone who’s still new to it, “but I feel we can and should trust our grapes and the good vineyard work that’s behind them. And…” he grows more solemn, “I was really traumatized by the migraines, suffering that only went away once I stopped eating and drinking industrialized produce. And if I don’t want additives for myself, I don’t want them for anybody.” Luckily for them, their neighbor just across the road is one Jean-Francois Coutelou, a long-term pioneer of natural winemaking in the area. “There’s no such thing as making wine alone,” Bruno nods. Don’t they miss their previous life and architecture, though? “Not really. Take the labels, for example—we now work with artists whose work we enjoy, so there’s still a lot of creativity going on.” The wines we import, for example, are made by a French artist and designer using the old cyanotype technique, putting natural materials from the vineyards like stones and plants on a photo-sensitive material. “And it goes way deeper than this—making a wine actually requires a lot of conceptual and creative work. You have to think a lot in advance about the “construction” of your wine—how to prune, when to harvest, how to package it… There are lots of facets to the ‘wine’s design’ as well!”