Tasting note
A red wine that breaks the rules of Roussillon with a wink: Tom Lubbe, the New Zealander from Calce and protégé of Gérard Gauby, blends grey and white berries here into a light-footed tipple of just 10.5% alcohol. While the region otherwise focuses on power and ripeness, Matassa opts for freshness – early harvesting, a cool profile, and effortless drinkability. The result is one of southern France’s most idiosyncratic summer wines, all the more inviting in large magnum format.
- Colour & appearance
- Bright, quite transparent cherry red with a subtle haze – a glassful of insouciance.
- Nose
- Bursting with fruit: ripe red berries, sweet cherries, hints of cherry drops and red peaches. Overlaid by a slightly herbal, faintly animal note – as wild as the garrigue from which it hails.
- Palate
- Dry, with a fine touch of carbon dioxide from the maceration that electrifies the wine. The texture recalls fine sandpaper – tactile yet never rough. Accompanied by invigorating acidity and ripe red fruit. A wine that shows its best when lightly chilled.
- Finish
- Juicy, fresh and with a lingering cherry note, framed by a fine tannic grip at the edges that beckons the next sip.
- Terroir & origin
- The Domaine Matassa parcels are scattered across the hills around Calce, some reaching altitudes of roughly 450 metres, surrounded by cedars, fig trees and wild rosemary. Schist and marl define the soils; many vines are decades old, with some exceeding a century.
- Grape variety & vinification
- A cuvée of 60% Grenache Gris and 40% Macabeo. After several days of semi-carbonic maceration with whole bunches, the wine was pressed, fermented further in ceramic eggs and aged there for eight months. Bottled without added sulphur and unfined/unfiltered – since 2015, not a drop of SO₂ has left Matassa’s cellar.
- Food pairings
- The slightly grippy texture works wonderfully at the table: harissa chicken skewers with tomato salad, tomato tarte tatin with olives and thyme, or a roast beef sandwich with melting cheese. In classic Mediterranean fashion, grilled fennel also fits the bill – or rather, herb-roasted vegetables.
- Special features
- The unusual twist: a red wine made from grey and white berries, low in alcohol yet sufficiently structured for the dining table. As a magnum, it is the ideal everyday wine for balmy evenings and large gatherings.
