Merlot
Idoine 2024
Mataburro

Grape Variety: Merlot

Producer: Mataburro (Laurent Roger and Melissa Ingrand)

Region: Rivesaltes, Pyrénées-Orientales, Roussillon, France

Wild Scale: 3/5

Vegan friendly wine

12% alcohol

Winemaking: Organic Merlot grapes from 40 year old vines were harvested by hand and lightly crushed before a 5 day whole bunch maceration. Fermentation with indigenous yeast in fibreglass. Aged in steel tanks. Bottled with no fining, filtration or added sulphur.

This Wine: A natural red wine with a light body, virtually no tannin and fresh acidity. Darker in colour than the 2023 vintage which offers a further depth of fresh Strawberry and red Cherry flavours. Great slightly chilled. 

Notes on the Winemaker: Mataburro is the project of natural winemakers Laurent Roger and Melissa Ingrand in Rivesaltes which isn't far from Perpignan in the Pyrénées-Orientales region of Southern France. Laurent comes from a a family of winemakers who threw in the towel at the turn of the millenium when the sweet Muscat historically produced in this region fell out fashion in the global market. He had left his hometown of Rivesaltes to work in Paris where he fell in love with natural wine. To his father's amazement, he returned home with a clear vision to return to the vines that he had worked as a child. Inspired by time learning from natural wine legend Alain Castex, Laurent creates wines with amazing freshness considering the warm Mediterranean climate. Mataburro means Donkey Killer which refers to a railway that runs through the vineyard. When it opened in 1910, a train sadly killed 2 donkeys on the first day.