Matissat
Matissat is a pure Mourvèdre from La Pèira, grown on a single small plot of the Bois de Pauliau, a few steps from where it is made.
In 2007 the Mourvèdre there was of such quality that, when it came to blending, it could not find its place alongside the Syrah and Grenache of La Pèira, and so it was bottled alone. It has been made that way ever since. The name is Occitan for “subtle” or “nuanced”. The vineyard is tiny, and fewer than a thousand bottles are made.
“It’s up with the greatest expressions of this variety in France”
Mourvèdre is usually thought of as a grape of Bandol, by the sea, and it is almost always blended; even Bandol’s leading estates advise against bottling it alone. Matissat grows inland instead, in the hills of the Hérault beneath the Larzac plateau, where temperatures drop sharply in autumn and the grapes are picked in the October mists. Rob has said it is about as close as La Pèira will come to making a Nebbiolo.
The plot lies in one of the oldest wine regions in France. Pliny the Elder singled out the wines of nearby Béziers in the first century AD, and France’s earliest known winery, from AD 10, was found close by in 2007.
“A landmark Mourvèdre, like no other in France”
The wine was kept back for five years before any was offered for sale. In 2012 Jancis Robinson tasted the first five vintages, 2007 to 2011, side by side: with the same plot, the same grape and the same way of making it each year, they gave a window on each vintage in the Terrasses du Larzac. Asked whether anything had changed in the winemaking, Rob replied: “There’s been no conscious change. But no doubt many tiny cumulative changes in vineyard work, harvest dates, soil, age of vines…”
