FRENCH WINE

ORGANICALLY FARMED

Combel La Serre has been ECOCERT-certified organic since 2013, though farmed without chemicals for several decades up to that point--the family long suspected that the death of Julien’s grandfather from severe Parkinson’s disease was directly tied to a lifetime of exposure to the conventional chemicals so commonly by French farmers in the mid-20th century--so they set about eliminating them long ago. The vines range in age from 20-90 years old, are worked entirely by hand and harvested manually. As with Combel’s winegrowing, their winemaking choices are atypical of Cahors: their wines are fermented with indigenous yeasts, made with only moderate extraction, touched barely by sulfur and raised mainly in cement tanks and used barrels.

100% Malbec (aka Auxerrois in local parlance). The fruit for Pur comes from seven different Combel sites totalling 8.5 hectares on the limestone plateau known as the causse. The vines are certified-organic, average 35 years old and are kept to a modest yield. The grapes are hand-harvested and pressed with 10- 20% whole clusters; the juice ferments at cool temperatures with indigenous yeasts in cement tanks with a 10-to-12-day maceration. The wine is aged in cement through the winter and bottled in the spring. Pur Fruit is Combel's "entry-level" red, made in a fruit-forward, more approachable style than most Cahors adn accounting for about half of the estate's production.