Known as the original winemaker/director of Domaine La Sauvageonne, Gavin Crisfieldhad long harbored dreams of sustaining himself through consul?ng and negociant workwhile expressing himself through the vehicle of a much smaller estate that could be builtuncompromisingly from the ground up.“My idea,” Crisfield elaborates, “was to take the four principle cepages of the region:Syrah, Grenache, Cinsault, Carignan ; to block out four different terroir: schist, Permiansandstone, galets roules, and basal?c-volcanic ; and make from them a single vin degarde.” His ?ny new cellar in an old mansion in Les Salces, near St. Privat (and three milesfurther up into the hills from La Sauvageonne as well as from most of his roughly ten acresof vines) is equipped with a stainless steel basket press, two “tronconique” woodenfermentors, a few concrete “eggs”, and one foudre, all (nearly) new. He has goPen a strongearly response to his wines not only from his na?ve U.K., but from elsewhere in Europeand, more surprisingly from inside France.
