L'Absurde Genie des Fleurs "Pluom"

Grapes: Cinsault (45 yr old vine)

Region: VDF

Vintage: 2021

Viticulture: Biodynamic

Soils: Limestone

Vinification: 4 day whole-cluster maceration

Aging: 6 months

Fining or Filtering: None

Sulfur: None

Notes from the Importer: L’Absurde Génie des Fleurs is the winemaking partnership of Tom Gautier and Miha Trifa. They moved to Bédarieux in Hérault (a village near Montpellier) in 2016, acquiring their first small plot of vines on the limestone plateau above the Orb River.
They started a micro-production, producing only a few thousand bottles across a handful local varieties of mostly Cinsault, Carignan and Clairette; in addition to grapes purchased from local vignerons including François Aubry, Rémi Poujol, and Julien Peyras.
They expanded in 2019, with the opportunity to take on 5.5ha of old, gobelet-trained vines in Clairac from local vigneron Bernard Milhaud. Their farming is still in the process of organic conversion.
Grapes include Cinsault, Aramon, Carignan, Grand Noir de la Calmette, Morastel, Mourvèdre, Terret, and Chardonnay.
Wines are produced with a manual vertical press, and use neither sulfite addition or filtration. They include a range of crown-capped bottles, where the cuvées are named after gnomes from Romanian folklore, taken from Miha’s native Romania.
They produced 70hl in 2020, a low-yield year due to mildew losses. In 2021, they’ll produce 160hl from their cellar in Bédarieux.
L’Absurde Génie des Fleurs, the Absurd Genius of Flowers, comes from the French poet Jean Cocteau and reflects his solitude and contemplation at the view of nature.