Catherine Bernard & Nicolas Allain "Le Carignan" 2022 Carignan Vin de France

750ml bottle

11.5% abv

Slightly natty but clean, with tart blackberry, mulberry, and earth tones. Grippy and deeply concentrated.

YEASTS: Indigenous

ADDED SO2: None

MACERATION: 1 week, destemmed

FERMENTATION VESSEL: Fiberglass AGING: 9 months in barrel

CLARIFICATION/FILTRATION: Unfiltered/ Unfined

SOIL: Clay, limestone

VINE AGE: 60 years

Journalist turned winemaker Catherine Bernard would love to be making white wine. When she decided that after years of writing she would dive head first into her dream career she moved to Saint-Drezery, Languedoc. Fortunately for red wine lovers, when Bernard made the transition to vigneron she bought 3 hectares of grenache, mourvedre, and marselan. The purchase means that she makes red wine with the elegance and subtlety of white wine.

Catherine and her beautiful wines are moving. Maybe she had it in her but maybe also as a result of her maturity, her understanding of her vines, that eventually translates into the finished wines, is nuanced, thoughtful, and palpably heartfelt.

Catherine works biodynamically in the vineyard and is certified organic. After years of sharing a space with a fellow winemaker, in 2015 she built her own winery. 

Catherine often exclaims that she wishes she could make white wine in addition to red, and this desire comes across in the character of her wines – great elegance and fine tannins with lots of delicate red fruit. She is now joined in the vines and the cellar by her son Nicolas Allain.