Mataburro – Introduction
Roussillon is the Catalan region of France lying on the Mediterranean side of the country in sight of the Pyrenees mountains that divide Spain from France.
Mataburro is the name of small domaine established in Roussillon by rising stars Laurent Roger and Melissa Ingrand. Their wines are natural and very delicious!
On our visit to their winery and vineyards this year the quality of the wines was as high as ever due to the attention, love and care with which they tend their vineyards and apply to their wines.
Laurent worked for several years at the venerable Paris bar à vin Le Verre Volé and after that returned to Roussillon to work directly with Alain Castex, then of Le Casot des Mailloles.
Towards the end of 2017, armed with what he had learned from Castex, he and Melissa set up Mataburro as their brand and took over the remaining three hectare vineyard from his father and are returning it to its organic past.
In 2019 they started biodynamics and they are using cover crops to improve the soil quality. In fact, during our morning of walking around all of their vineyards in the spring of 2022 we were very impressed with their understanding of the role the soil plays in the vineyard. The same applied in 2024 when we visited.
Alain Castex taught Laurent the importance of the soil. He also had this concept reinforced by Tom Lubbe and Axel Prüfer.
Now, Mataburro consists of almost 5 hectares of vines, split into several parcels near Rivesaltes and Espira-de-l’Agly in Roussillon, Laurent and Melissa’s objective is always to make fresh wines which have low % alcohol, wines that are suitable for drinking in the hot Mediterranean climate in which they live. It also makes them very welcome arrivals for this time of year in Australia.
The winemaking at Mataburro usually consists of short macerations of whole bunches with no foot stomping to limit the extraction. They believe that foot stomping makes wines that are less delicate.
All macerations take place in fibreglass with, for the most part, the wines aged in stainless steel. The wines are not filtered and have no added sulphites. Laurent recommends serving all Mataburro wines in a carafe.
The photo below was taken in the Mataburro cellars. It shows a large stainless steel vat containing the 2019 juice for the Idoine cuvee which we will be receiving this year.
In an email sent by Laurent and Melissa recently they talked about the difficulty they have had over the past couple of years due to the droughts experienced in the south of France:
We have been experiencing a severe drought since 2021 (250 mm of rain per year on average) which is causing the entire vineyard to suffer. Despite the vines being greatly weakened by this lack of water, and thanks to a lot of work in the vineyard, we are still happy with our harvest, we brought in some nice grapes, the fermentations went well and the juices are delicate as we wanted!!
Mataburro Otium 2024
This year’s Otium is made predominantly with the same Grenache it has always been made with, which comes from 80 year old Rivesaltes vines, farmed by Laurent’s grandfather.
Whole bunches were macerated for about 5 days before pressing.
This year though 10% is Grenache Gris from a vineyard in Fourques that Alain Castex farmed until his death and which since then Laurent has tended.
It was destemmed and separately macerated for a few days. After pressing, the two were blended and matured in one of Alain Castex’s concrete tanks. It is a lighter than Idoine, very fragrant, and, as always, has a most compelling silky texture.
The wine is 12% this year.
RRP: $68 (Enquire)
Mataburro Idoine 2024
Idoine, as usual, is 100% Merlot.
It comes from 30 year old vines in Rivesaltes planted by Laurent’s father on quite heavy clay soils.
The meticulous pruning in this vineyard, and then strict disbudding in the spring has, Laurent thinks, contributed to much more even maturity this year.
Whole bunches were macerated for 3-4 days (fewer than last year) but the wine seems slightly more concentrated this year.
It was aged 80% in concrete tanks and 20% in wood. The wine is particularly juicy with aromas of ripe black cherries. “It’s our Gamay” according to Laurent.
The wine is 12.5% this year.
RRP: $66 (Enquire)
Mataburro Mura Mura 2024
This wine is made from several separate components, the result of which is a blend of Grenache Noir, Merlot, Mourvèdre, Muscat à Petits Grains, and Muscat d’Alexandrie.
The Merlot and Muscat à Petits Grains were picked at the same time in early August, macerated together for 2-3 days, and then the combined juice was pressed.
The Muscat d’Alexandrie was picked into two tanks. Whole bunches went into one and destemmed grapes into the other.
Both tanks were macerated for several days and then pressed and kept separate. The next component was Grenache Noir, which was macerated (whole bunch) for two days. It was then pressed and also kept separate.
The final component was some Mourvèdre from a vineyard with distinctive dark black soils. This year, inexplicably, the grapes refused to budge beyond a certain point of ripeness for over a month and so, despite most of the harvest being in August, including all the other components for this wine, it was not picked until mid September, mainly to save it from being completely eaten by birds!
Eventually the separate components were racked and blended to make the wine (it seems a bit like the completion of a jigsaw puzzle!). 15% of it spent time in a large old Stockinger barrel and the rest in fibreglass.
The wine is 11.5% this year.
RRP: $68 (Enquire)
Mataburro Quartet 2023
We always look forward to the arrival of our supply of Mataburro Quartet. It is created from Grenache Noir, Muscat à Petits Grains, and Muscat d’Alexandrie with directly-pressed Syrah.
The wine is very light. You may find a slight bubble or two when you first open this wine but these will disappear fairly quickly. We should add here that this is often regarded as a fault in winemaking. This is simply because the wine competitions need things to take off marks for and they chose the presence of tiny amounts of carbon dioxide as one of the ways to do this.
They haven’t caught up with the fact that the world of winemaking has moved on, and many natural winemakers, especially those who add no sulphites at any time, often bottle the wine with a tiny amount of residual sugar remaining. Once the wine is bottled this sugar is converted to carbon dioxide by any remaining yeast in the wine. What these winemakers have achieved is a way of controlling any bacteria in the wine which is far more effective than adding sulphites. So, for us, it can hardly be called a fault if that is what the winemaker is trying to achieve.
It underwent semi-carbonic maceration and then was matured in a concrete vat. The fermentation was, of course, carried through with only the natural yeasts on the grapes. The alcohol level is 12%.
This wine has no additions, including no added sulphites (sans sulphites ajoutés on the label), and no fining or filtration.
It is called Quartet because it was the fourth cuvée (after Idoine, Mura Mura and Otium) that Melissa and Laurent made.
After pressing most of it was aged in a concrete vat (also from Alain Castex) plus there were two barrels. The wine is quite silky, something Laurent attributes to the concrete.
RRP: $60 (SOLD OUT)
Mataburro Quartet Blanc 2024
This is a négoce wine, possibly a one-off, made with grapes purchased from a neighbour whose vines are in Espira-de-l’Agly, about 200 metres from Laurent and Melissa’s Macabeu vineyard from which they make Memo.
The vines in red clay are some of the earliest to be certified organic in the region.
The wine is made in two parts. At first Viognier was directly pressed. A few days later, while it was still fermenting, destemmed Grenache Gris was added to the juice. (This is unusual. Mostly they work with whole bunches.)
After a few days it was pressed. We’ve classified it as ‘bacerated’ because of that short period on skins.
It is 40% Viognier and 60% Grenache Gris. Laurent describes the Grenache Gris as adding tension and the Viognier imparting richness, but of course tempered by the Grenache Gris.
Fermentation as always was natural and carried out in tanks.
The wine was bottled without fining, filtration or added sulphur.
The wine is 11% this year.
RRP: $66 (Enquire)
Mataburro Totem 2023
The Mataburro Totem is slightly different this year as it is made from Grenache Noir and Mourvèdre.
This wine was matured in an amphora as well as old wooden barrels and stainless steel to extract more colour and other polyphenols in order to produce a red wine that is slightly darker than their other wines. It is also quite structured, but there is not a hint of harshness with the wine still maintaining the Mataburro signature freshness and lightness.
We are always impressed with the amazing expression of the Grenache Noir grape that this wine represents. There is fruit at the start, followed by complexity and then an amazing finish where the soft tannins shine through.
Tasters used words like soft, dusty and tightly controlled to describe the amazing tannic structure exhibited by the wine. The amphora has certainly delivered! In 2023 the addition of the Mourvèdre has also added further complexity to the wine.
Once again, here is a wine that has benefitted from grapes that have been grown in soil that has been treated with respect through the commencement of biodynamic treatment.
As we have said in the introduction above, Laurent and Melissa are now even eschewing tilling and instead simply rolling the grasses and herbs so that they give back to the soil rather than damaging the vital fungal structures through tilling.
This wine has no additions, including no added sulphites, and no fining or filtration. The level of alcohol is 13%.
RRP: $70 (SOLD OUT)
Mataburro Memo 2024
The wine is made from approximately 70 year old vines growing on clay and rolled pebbles of limestone in Espira-de-l’Agly.
The vines were planted by Laurent’s grandfather but they purchased the vineyard from a subsequent owner a few years ago.
It is a maceration of Macabeu. This year they made two passes through the vineyard, five days apart and macerated each pick in separate tanks.
The early pick was macerated for four days and the second one for 5 days. After pressing, the wine was aged in fibreglass.
At the start of the palate it is all flowers and fruit but it finishes speaking of the soil, with a steely mineral statement. 10.5% ABV.
RRP: $68 (Enquire)
If you want to know more about the wines of the Roussillon region then you can find a summary here.
We also import some amazing vinegars from a producer who operates quite close to some of the vineyards of Laurent and Melissa which you can read about here.
