Homme de Pays Syrah 2013

Homme de Pays or the 'Man of the Village' if you prefer. He's very much like a man about town but on a significantly more localised area. His lawn bowls team are 49 games undefeated, his haybales are perfectly circular and of course his Syrah is the talk of the church fete. Why shouldn't it be? It's packed full of wonderful aromas like sweet cassis, bilberries, mocha and black pepper. We're not sure who this mystery homme is but we doth our flat-cap to him!

Boris Kovac is originally from Bosnia, where his father and grandfather made wine. He moved to France as a young man and met his now wife. They settled in the Roussillon town of Rivesaltes, where they still live today. Boris is much in demand as a consultant winemaker and does a lot of work for Paul Mas, but he also has his own winery and vines in the commune of La Tour de France where he has 22 hectares of old vine Syrah, Carignan, Grenache as well as some white wine vines including Vermentino.

This wine however is made further north in L'Herault, 15km from the Mediterranean Sea. He makes it for his friends who are traditional vignerons up there, from Old Vine Syrah and a touch of Old Vine Carignan. Vallee des Aigles is one of the oldest wineries in the region, the winery is traditional and uses a combination of small, epoxy lined concrete tanks for ageing with very large oak casks (foudres) for ageing.