Domaine de l'Hortus "Grande Cuvée" 2023 (75cl)

Domaine de l'Hortus "Grande Cuvée" 2023 is a wine from Pic Saint-Loup and Hortus, in the Cévennes foothills of France's central massif. Jean Orliac, an agricultural engineer and keen rock climber, discovered the cliffs there and bought 4 hectares in the 1970s with little money, planting vines. From 2000 his four children returned one by one to work at the estate. The soil is stony: material that rolled from scree slopes over hundreds of thousands of years gives a seemingly poor surface, while stones lying up to six metres deep on the bedrock retain water, helping the vines through hot, dry summers.