Vinyer de La Ruca Hapax 2021

Banyuls sur mer, Languedoc Roussillon

Taken from the Blog of our friends from Les Caves de Pyrene:

"As part of my studies, I took a census of wild vines in both Italy and France, and I happened upon Banyuls almost by chance: the first impact was fatal because this terroir is extraordinary, suspended between the sea and the mountains": from Tuscany to the eastern Pyrenees to produce natural wine. This is the story of Manuel Di Vecchi Staraz, a Florentine professor at the University of Montpellier who gave up teaching to devote himself to the land where it never rains, surrounded by cork oaks, on terraces of shale and dry stone walls, in the wind and the sun. Vinyer de la Ruca is an enclave of creative resistance inspired by Luciano Bianciardi, Johan W. Goethe and Rudolf Steiner via Ivan Illich: "The work goes with the seasons, follows the astronomical calendar and the moon. Biodynamic preparations promote the fertility of the earth and plants. Two treatments of natural quarry sulphur preserve the fruit. Hoeing, pruning, vine pruning, mowing, harvesting. All by hand. Scythe, sickle, scissors, fork, hoe, shovel, pole. In an enclosed space. Grapes are crushed with a woman's leg, destemmed by a man's hand, pressed in a wooden press, indigenous yeasts, annual cask, frequent oxygenation, bottled with a carafe handle, Catalan puff bottles, artist's labelling and sun dress. All by hand. Nothing filtering, concentrating, additive. A thousand bottles of Banyuls a year."