Tour des Gendres La Vigne d’Albert is a field blend vineyard planted with Malbec, Merlot, Cabernets, Fer Servadou, Abouriou and Perigord Noir. Luc’s uncle, Albert was given these plants in the 1960’s by his local ‘pepinierist’ thinking he was planting a Merlot, Cabernet vineyard.
When he discovered the mix up, he never bothered uprooting and used the wine for family and friends gathering. Luc saw the potential of these ancient native grapes and bottles this amazing cuvee. All bunches are destemmed, before being put directly into the vats on indigenous yeasts (thanks to the pied de cuve method of doing a small pre-harvest to start the natural fermentation going). 20 days of maceration, during which 10 days a quick fermentation takes place until there are 0 grams of sugar left. The wine was bottled without being filtered without the addition of sulphur. very fresh & ripe fruit, with a soft floral note too. The mouth is full, deep with a delicately light sweetness and a lovely freshness. A real fruity wine!
ALBERT DE CONTI, Saint-Julien d'Eymet
Certified Organic by Escort
It all began back in 1963, when Albert de Conti, whose parents emigrated from Italy in the 1920’s, bought some land with his wife Odette in the little village of St Julien d’Eymet, 20km south of Bergerac. He planted several hectares of vines, cereals and also had some cattle (polyculture was widespread in the region at the time).
In 1990, their son Francis took over and decided to merge his vineyard with that of his cousin Luc and became his partner in Château Tour des Gendres in Ribagnac. His son Guillaume joined him in 2011, followed by his second son Paulin 2013 and in 2017, Yann Lecoindre as cellarmaster.
Five years on and this trio of ‘youngsters’ have decided to breathe new life into Primode Contis home village of St Julien d’Eymet. They’ve taken over Francis’ vineyard and created Domaine Albert de Conti.
The terroir of this 30 hectare vineyard is made up of limestone-clayey and silty clayey soils. The oldest vines were planted by Albert in 1966, and the eponymous parcel (la Vigne d’Albert) is an original combination of a multitude of native grape varieties.The vines have been farmed organically for many years now and the team hope to go even further by using certain biodynamic and agroforestry methods, in order to restore and strengthen the natural balance of the land