Katie Jones Apres La Pluie Rose, Vin de France

Description

Katie Jones Apres La Pluie Rose is a southern French Rosé wine from Tuchan. It is a blend of Carignan, Syrah and a touch of Muscat.

Domaine Jones is owned and run by Katie Jones. Katie was the Sales and Marketing Director for the Mont Tauch co-operative in the Languedoc Roussillon for nearly twenty years until she fell in love with a small 3.5 hectare vineyard in the Maury Valley in 2007. Katie acquired the vineyard, called La Sanayre Est, in 2008. That original vineyard is located in the shadow of Queribus Castle and surrounded by wild scrub (or garrigue) and consists of over 8000 vines on slopes of black schist planted with Carignan, Grenache Noir, Grenache Gris and Muscat. The vines here are mainly over 70 years old. The vine age, altitude and stony, slate soils produce naturally very low-yielding vines. The lower the yield, the higher the quality.

Since then Katie has acquired more vineyards, including some in Fitou, and also makes some non-estate wines with some bought in fruit, including fruit from her late husband’s, Jean Marc, family vineyards. The wine-making philosophy at Domaine Jones is to employ traditional, down-to-earth farming methods and innovative winemaking techniques to capture the characteristics of the terroir and the local area. The wines are only produced in tiny quantities, in some cases the odd barrel or two, this truly is boutique wine-making. Katie’s wines have a surprising purity and freshness, due to the relatively high altitude of the vineyards which is unusual for wines from this area.

Katie first released the Apres La Pluie Rose as part of her “Recovery Range” of wines. Katie Jones and Domaine Jones hit the national press when her winery was vandalised and she lost an entire vintage of white wine. Whilst Katie was showing her wines at Prowein in Germany someone broke into her winery, opened the taps on the vats containing her 2012 white wine and let it all drain away. Never one to shy from a challenge, Katie subscribes to the “when life gives you lemons, make lemonade” philosophy and joined with local wine producers to make some “Recovery” parcels of wine which were bottled and sold under other labels to help her keep going. Today she still makes her “Sunshine after the rain” rose alongside many other wines.

As mentioned above, Katie Jones Rose is a blend of different grape varieties. The vineyards are located in and around the remote village of Tuchan in the Languedoc, southern France. The Carignan and Syrah come from Katie’s late husband’s vineyards and the Muscat from her own very old vines. The grapes are picked in early September. The Muscat grapes are added to the Carignan and Syrah and are co-pressed. The skins are left for a couple of hours of contact with the juice to extract just the right amount of colour before being gently pressed and fermented slowly at low temperature.