Domaine Matassa

New Zealand-born Tom Lubbe learned his trade in South Africa and had an early interest in growing grapes close to nature. However, as his interest in Mediterranean viticulture grew stronger, he landed at Gerard Gauby in Languedoc-Roussillon.

After a few years as cellar master at Gauby, Tom knew the area and the potential of the terroir quite well. Then, in 2003, he acquired a spectacular parcel of a wild, uncut vineyard of ancient Carignan vines called Matassa; it was the birth of the winery he founded with his wife Nathalie and friend Sam Harrop. The first vintage was still produced in the newly married couple's living room and when Gerard heard about it, he felt so bad that he gave Tom his old cellar in 2004! After acquiring more Carignan plots in the mountain village of Le Vivier, they were then able to increase production considerably.

The Domaine Matassa, which now covers around 15 hectares, is farmed purely biodynamically and yields from the old vines are extremely low, averaging downright at 12- 18hl/ha. Compared to conventional farming, this is an astonishing 50-100hl/ha less, which has a huge impact on the quality and concentration of the grapes.

Tom Lubbe is radically stringent in his use of soil greening, which leads to an interesting effect: the drastic drop in alcohol content. Within 15 years, he was able to reduce it by a total of 3%. His vision is to produce wines with a cool style and high tension on the palate.

"With all these developments over the last 15 years, I realise a change in the soils, in the wine, but also in me - and therefore I still feel a very strong connection to this small parcel of Matassa at the very beginning of my work here, where naturally, thanks to the exposure in the middle of the forest, there was a high microbiological activity in the soil and so an extraordinary starting position was already ready for me - green, cool, moist, alive," says Tom Lubbe. And you can definitely taste that!

When the wines are matured, the barrels are supposed to literally give the wine oxygen without changing the aromas or the structure. The wines are bottled without filtration or fining and since the 2015 vintage, no sulphur is added at all. The clarity and precision of the Matassa wines, underlined by an incredibly gripping minerality, make them one of the greatest wine experiences from France. Unique!