Hors Champ, MU, 2023

Apricot, Honey, Mineral

Roussillon / Orange / Muscat Petits Grains / Organic

The fruit is sourced from organically farmed vines around Latour-de-France, hand-harvested into small boxes and given a 10-day skin maceration with indigenous yeasts in a mix of enamel-lined vats and seasoned demi-muids. No sulfur is added during vinification; the wine undergoes full malo and is aged on its fine lees, without bâtonnage or racking, for approximately ten months. It’s bottled unfined and unfiltered with a token dose of SO₂ (<10 mg/L), resulting in a warm, generous palate of apricot and honey framed by a taut mineral streak.

Notes on the producer

Cyril Fhal founded Clos du Rouge Gorge in 2002 in the schist-strewn hills of Latour-de-France, staking out old terraces that had been all but abandoned. With a background in Loire and Roussillon cellaring, he took on steep, low-yielding plots and converted them to organic viticulture by 2005. In 2008 he overhauled his cellar to work by gravity and added gentle pneumatic pressing. Beyond his estate wines, Cyril’s Hors Champ project—including MU—sources grapes from like-minded organic growers to craft small-batch cuvées with minimal intervention: no fining, no filtration, and total sulphur levels kept under 10 mg/L. His wines are celebrated for their purity, freshness and profound sense of place.