Domaine Arretxea 'Hegoxuri' 2022 Blanc d'Irouléguy Pyrénées-Atlantiques

750ml bottle

14% abv

Bright citrus and stone fruit with floral lift, layered with subtle oak, honey, and saline minerality. Rich and fleshy, and balanced by bracing acidity. Finishes long, salty, and refreshing. A powerful, age-worthy white combining volume with precision.

• Biodynamic farming, certified organic.
• Blend: Gros Manseng 55%, Petit Manseng 25%, Petit Courbu 20%.
• Soils: schist and sandstone.
• Aging/fermentation: 1200L foudre & 600L demi-muid.

The Basque country lies along the southwestern border of France and Spain, deep in the dramatic Pyrénées mountains. The eleventh century monks of Roncevaux made wine to cater to a population of tourists—religious pilgrims traveling through the mountain pass from France on their way to Santiago de Compostela in Spain. However, throughout the centuries, wine production dissipated drastically. Although Irouléguy was awarded its own AOC in 1970, by the late twentieth century, most of the remaining vignerons were selling to the local cooperative. And then along came Michel and Thérèse Riouspeyrous…

Having lost his father at the age of thirteen, Michel was raised by his grandfather, with whom he worked in the family farm and vineyards. He eventually gravitated towards studies in agronomy before the mandatory service militaire sent him to Africa for duty. While in Africa, Michel met Thérèse, an Alsatian who was on vacation. They married and returned to Michel’s home in the Southwest in the early eighties. In 1989, they decided to start their own domaine by renting two hectares of vineyards. The decision to farm organically came rather instantaneously to Michel. Once certified as organic, he and Thérèse pushed on towards the next logical progression: biodynamics. Juxtaposed against a backdrop of co-op wine that has come to categorize the appellation in recent decades, the Riouspeyrous seem even more radical—not only for bottling their own wine, but also for farming it as they do. For Michel and Thérèse, it just translates into a more authentic expression of the grape. A mere glimpse of their steep, terraced land, amid beautifully lush wildflowers, set against the white peaks of the Pyrénées, with sheep grazing on the soft, aerated soils in between vineyard rows, makes it easy to see what inspired such a decision.

The majority of their eight hectares are planted to the region's native grape varieties, Tannat for red and Gros Manseng, Petit Manseng, and Petit Courbu for white. Cabernet Franc and Cabernet Sauvignon, long present in the region and traditionally blended into the reds, complete their collection of cépages. Full southern exposure allows the Riouspeyrous to achieve ripeness in these cooler-climate mountain vineyards. The sandstone soils of Irouléguy are streaked with iron oxide, mica, silica, limestone, clay, and dolomite, a diversity of minerals that translates to vibrant and complex wines.

They vinify each terroir individually through traditional vinification methods to bottle four delicious cuvées each year, plus tiny releases of stunning single-terroir wines and other experiments with vinification and aging.

In 2019, Michel and Thérèse officially retired and handed the reins of the domaine to their sons, Iban and Teo. The new generation continues in their parents' footsteps, producing beautifully chiseled, cellar-worthy wines that speak to their origins at the foot of the Pyrénées. In all three colors, these are special wines bearing the unique signature of Basque terroir, incomparable to anything else in all of France.