La Ferme Julien, -, AOC Ventoux, Rouge, 2015

The big "pleasure wine", this is how we can call La Ferme Julien. A simple wine, but excellent each year vintage after vintage. One of the best value wines in the world.

2015 was a magnificent year in the south as well, characterized by excellent sanitary conditions thanks to the mild, wet winter, followed by a relatively hot, dry spring. The vines coped well with the extreme heat and lack of rain in the summer thanks to good hydric reserves. Following satisfactory flowering, rapid and regular ripening was assisted by rain that fell in August, producing berries rich in phenolic compounds and anthocyanins. As in the north, harvesting took place under excellent conditions.

The southern slopes of Mont Ventoux (1912 metres/ 5736 feet), 25 km/40 miles east of Orange. The vineyards lie in the towns of Mazan, Moimoiron, Villes sur Auzon, Puymeras and Saint-Didier, where the average height above sea level is 300 metres/1000 feet.

This varies according to altitude but consists for the most part of deposits left around the base of the chalky Mont Ventoux by the seas of the Tertiary period. Red Mediterranean soils blend with chalk debris and round stones.

This is adapted to suit each wine, grape variety and producer. Nearly all the grapes are lightly crushed and fermented in cement vats of 150 and 300 hectolitres. The fermentation is classic and extended.

The wine is kept in both vats and large oak barrels for ten months.