Katie Jones, Vieux Cepages Carignan 2019

Katie has very strict criteria when buying her vineyards. The vines have to be old (the older the better), they have to be on slopes and they have to have a great view. Les Perles Carignan comes from 2 such vineyards one in Paziols and one in Tuchan The vines are over 100 years old and despite their age give a great freshness and youth to the wine.

Most other growers in the area wouldn’t be interested in Katie Jones' modest 12 hectares of vines which spread across vineyards in Maury (her first), Paziols and Tuchan. The sites are small, remote and, to most vignerons - too much like hard work. Katie looks for low yields with high quality, and the rather poor, sloping ground that the very old, traditional vines cling to gives just that. Most of the work including harvesting has tobe done by hand, but the results are more than worth the toil! Having worked in marketing for a Co-Operative for many years, Katie decided to get in to wine making, leaving her job and starting out in 2008. Some spiteful individuals vandalised her little winery in 2013, and almost her entire harvest went quite literally down the drain. She has now established a new, high-security winery in what was once an old train shed in the village of Tuchan, abandoned since 1935.