Closerie des Lys

From Vintage59:
Roughly 50 miles south of the old walled town of Carcassonne are the vineyards of Closerie des Lys. They grow deep in the Pyrenean foothills on the sides of two mountains, flanking a little hollow anchored by the village of Antugnac. The village is old and forgotten, with a church that was fortified in the Middle Ages as a bastide against marauding mercenary bands, but few travelers venture off the main road to climb the hill to visit Antugnac and its church.

The lowest vines sit at 900 feet; the highest look out at 1,700 feet. Mostly they face south, such as the mature Chardonnay parcels in the photo below (those are the Pyrenees in the distance). The lowest parcel, planted in 2003 to Syrah, has the deepest vein of clay and is the most protected from the region’s buffeting winds, and in 2018 for the first time Closerie bottled wine from this site as the domain’s first 100% Syrah. For some, its aromatics are chock full of the northern Rhone’s bacon and violets; for others, it speaks of intense central Loire Cab Franc. The site is Closerie’s warmest, but there’s no doubt about it being a cool-climate wine.