Forgotten France: The electric wines of Irouléguy

The long days in Biarritz followed the same perfect rhythm: a morning surf, lunch and a siesta, then an evening surf followed by dinner.

Salty and sunkissed, we would slide into the local bars for pintxos and the catch of the day. Surfing leaves one hollowed out in a good way, and nothing filled that hollow like the local fare paired with the local white wines – sharp, saline, electric things that tasted like a perfect synthesis between the Atlantic out front and the Pyrenees behind.

These wines of Earthsea, I learned, were from Irouléguy, a hidden appellation east of Biarritz. With mysterious names, grapes and scripts, they open yet another dimension of French wine.

Irouléguy is the only AP within the Pays Basque – the French Basque Country, in that vast, undifferentiated region known as Southwest France.

A sliver of vines covering just 270ha or so, scattered across 15 villages in the foothills of the western Pyrenees, around St-Etienne-de-Baïgorry and St-Jean-Pied-de-Port, the latter a storied pilgrim town that marks the start of the Camino Francés, the most popular route of the Camino de Santiago.

It’s French on the map and not far from Spain, but it’s Basque through and through: the bottles carry wording in Euskara, the Basque language, the villages are whitewashed and red-shuttered, the people, wine and cuisine speak their own vernacular.

Decline & rebirth

Vines have grown here since monks from the Abbey of Roncesvalles, on the Spanish side, planted them to refresh pilgrims on the route to Santiago de Compostela around the 11th century.

When the Treaty of the Pyrenees redrew the border in 1659, the vineyards ended up on the French side and passed to local farmers. Yet phylloxera and two world wars reduced the already small appellation to a mere 30ha of vines by 1950.

Almost forgotten, a handful of growers rallied to found a cooperative in 1952 and an AOC (now AP) was granted in 1970.

Independent domaines have since multiplied – from a dozen a decade ago to more than 20 today – in one of the more striking grassroots revivals in contemporary French wine.

The renowned geologist Yves Hérody, who spent seven years mapping Irouléguy’s soils, refers to the Basque Country as ‘a giant accordion that has been playing music for nearly a billion years’.

Red sandstone dominates, with pockets of ophite, a dark volcanic rock, and schist and limestone.

Most of the vines cling to hand-carved terraces on slopes that can almost be called cliffs. This is heroic viticulture in the most literal sense, every harvest done on foot, by hand, often on a rope.

Eight in 10 vignerons farm these bright green hills organically, a remarkable commitment given the relentless rain.

The Atlantic sends about 1,500mm of rain a year on average, far more than Bordeaux (roughly 900mm), yet the Pyrenees send back a warm, drying autumn wind known as the haize hegoa (‘south wind’).

Elemental wines

That elemental balance is palpable in these wines, shaped equally by mountain and sea. Rustic yet increasingly refined reds built mostly on Tannat and Cabernet Franc – dark, structured, slow to soften – account for the majority of production.

But it’s the electric white blends of Gros Manseng, Petit Manseng and Petit Courbu that have driven the appellation’s resurgence over the past decade.

Domaine Arretxea, organic since the early 1990s, when the banks and local restaurants alike doubted them, remains one of Irouléguy’s key reference points, along with a new generation of proudly Basque producers – Bordaxuria, Goienetxea, Apelxenia, Etxondoa – who are finding their way into top restaurants across France and beyond.

But perhaps the best place to taste them is in a small restaurant in Biarritz, with some pintxos and calamari, saltwater drying on your skin.

Mountain-born, ocean-rinsed, these are elemental wines in every sense.

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