Walls: Tasting Château de Montfaucon – ‘Lirac’s finest wines’

How many wines can you name that contain over 20 grape varieties? Here’s one: Château de Montfaucon’s Lirac, Vin de Monsieur le Baron. Having tasted every vintage back to 2007, I can state with certainty that it’s one of Lirac’s greatest red wines.

If this sounds like faint praise, it’s not meant to. Admittedly, Lirac doesn’t currently have the same cachet as Châteauneuf-du-Pape, but it’s just on the other side of the Rhône river and has some pockets of exceptional terroir. What’s more, while the greatest Châteauneuf might set you back £400 a bottle, you can find Vin de Monsieur le Baron for closer to £40.

Scroll down to see tasting notes and scores for verticals of Vin de Monsieur le Baron and Vin de Madame la Comtesse

Vin de Monsieur le Baron

The village of Montfaucon lies next to the Rhône river itself, and its château towers over the surrounding houses. It was built in the 11th century, and has been owned by Rodolphe de Pins’ ancestors for generations. He inherited the property and its surrounding vineyards in 1995.

‘Ever since I’ve been making wine in the region, I’ve always been interested in secondary varieties such as Counoise, Aubun and Vaccarèse,’ says de Pins. ‘Grenache, Syrah, and Mourvèdre work well here, but why did the others end up being to some extent abandoned?’

A desire to explore these obscure local grapes was the original motivation for creating a new cuvée, and it was an experiment in co-fermentation that convinced him that this was the right method to bind them together.

Some varieties ripen early, others late, so choosing the right moment to pick all 20 isn’t straightforward. But de Pins found that in co-fermenting the grapes, the resulting wine had a ‘very different profile… a different tannic grain and a particular acidity’.

He includes about 10% of white grapes in the blend ‘for fluidity and aromatics,’ he says, and suggests that using white varieties more widely in the region ‘is perhaps a key to getting drinkability back in our wines.’

Some of his oldest vineyards are co-planted, and he supplements these with the varieties he feels are required to create a balanced blend. The exact parcels aren’t the same every year, but he favours old vines. He’s made the cuvée nearly every year since 2007, except in 2013, 2014, 2015 and 2018.

In lighter vintages it’s a wine you can enjoy straight away, but it’s worth waiting a decade before opening, and it can last between 20 and 30 years. The aromas and flavours tend towards savoury herbs, flowers and menthol rather than jammy fruits, and the wine has a grand yet precise inner architecture.

Vin de Monsieur le Baron: the blend

The exact blend will change slightly each year. Typically Grenache and Syrah make up less than 30% of the blend, and white varieties make up less than 10%. De Pins hasn’t yet identified every variety in his oldest vineyards, but they include the following.

Red varieties: Grenache, Syrah, Mourvèdre, Carignan, Cinsault, Counoise, Vaccarèse, Aubun, Alicante, Terret Noir, Grand Noir de la Calmette, Aramon, Piquepoul Noir.

White and pink varieties: Viognier, Marsanne, Grenache Blanc, Grenache Gris, Clairette, Clairette Rose, Bourboulenc, Piquepoul, Piquepoul Gris.

Vin de Madame la Comtesse

The white partner to Vin de Monsieur le Baron came a little later; its first vintage was 2012 and it has been made every year since, except in 2019. It shares almost the same label as Vin de Monsieur le Baron just in a different colour, and is a reproduction of a label from the estate that dates back to 1829. Aside from that, however, ‘it’s the opposite of Monsieur – a single variety and a single vineyard,’ says de Pins.

When he bought the vineyard, it was clear he had something special. The Clairette vines are ancient, gigantic, like petrified sea monsters. Dating them wasn’t easy, but after speaking to the previous owner and carrying out some investigative work at the local notary’s office, it would appear they date back to around 1870. The soils are sand and silt, and it’s likely that some are pre-phylloxera vines.

He picks the grapes as they start to turn golden, between 12.5% and 13.2% potential alcohol, ‘so not too ripe, too fat or lacking freshness,’ says de Pins. The fermentation starts in concrete, then he transfers it to used barriques. It’s bottled without malolactic fermentation to preserve acidity.

He stores the bottles for a year or two before releasing them, as it takes time for the wine’s character to reveal itself. Clairette is aromatically discreet, ‘it’s not a show-off like Viognier or Roussanne,’ he says. At this point, hints of fennel, grapefruit and macadamia start to emerge. After eight years, it takes on further complexity: dried flowers, dried grasses and candied citrus peel.

But it’s really on the palate that this wine shows its class. It has breadth and weight without oiliness or excess fat. The acidity is naturally low, but there’s a textural freshness that brings a sense of balance. It’s a wine that speaks of tension, focus and salinity rather than specific flavours, which makes it intellectual rather than strictly hedonistic.

Over the past couple of years, the demand for Lirac wines has increased; the appellation has seen sales growth in the double digits. But the best Lirac wines still aren’t attracting the prices they deserve. For wine lovers, this represents an opportunity.

Château de Montfaucon shows just how great the wines of Lirac can be in the hands of gifted winemakers. Now’s a good time to see what they can do.

See the full verticals for Vin de Madame la Comtesse and Vin de Monsieur le Baron:

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