The full of (wines) nature of a child of Aubrac

“If I had to make wine, I would go to Aveyron”, Wine merchant Olivier Cochard recently told us, whose Rennes boutique, Histoire de vins, is one of the French mecca for natural bowling. We will not contradict him by discovering the dream domain that Nicolas Carmarans has set up in the hollow of the mountains of Haut Rouergue. After winding through the middle of the forest, how can you not marvel at the building with a slate roof and walls set in granite, overlooking vines whose slopes hilly to the Truyère, the main tributary of the Lot, transformed in a lake by the Couesques dam?

50 kilometers south of Aurillac, this corner of Aubrac, more devoted to aging and milk than grapes, has seen some of the most delicious juices of the wine generation spring up since the 2000s. organic and natural. Bottles called Fer de sang, Maximus, Mauvais temps, Selves… that wine merchants and sommeliers from all over the world now reserve for a chance to include them on their menu.

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The example of Nicolas Carmarans – like that of Patrick Rols, near Conques – has inspired a new wave of Aveyron winegrowers: Pauline Broqua, at Les Buis; Yvan-Marie Rufié, in Conques; Damien Deletang, in Saint-Côme-d’Olt; Hugo Epinoux, in Estaing. They give the appearance of an unexpected promised land to this territory with the small appellations of the South-West (marcillac, estaing, entraygues-le-fel), little known to the general public.

A wine renaissance rather than a blank page. “At the beginning of the XXe century, each family had its own plot of vines and each village had its cooper ”, recalls Nicolas Carmarans, remembering that his grandparents thus produced wine for family consumption, before the wars, the rural exodus, the frost of 1956 or the hard work put an end to these traditions.

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In addition to the beauty of the site, its 3 hectares divided between granite arenas and silty shales are not lacking in assets. “While we are very south of the Loire, the altitude brings us freshness, even in summer, which allows us to harvest ripe grapes with a low alcohol content”, notes the bearded 55-year-old.

From a banter to peasant curves, the winegrower speaks with the sharp accent of the Parisian he once was. Heir to this diaspora from the north of Aveyron who came to build a bistro empire in the capital, this bougnat grandson, whose parents ran Le Rostand, the emblematic literary café of the Latin Quarter, himself served a lot of wines before dying. ‘produce it.

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