Pascal Fullá--good with wine, good with words.
Pascal Fullá, the owner of Le Mas de l’Ecriture, gave up a law career in 1998 to become a winemaker. He’s not the first attorney-turned-winemaker I have met or read about. Why an attorney would exchange the bar for a tractor is certainly an interesting, philosophical question; for Fullá it was the cure for a mid-life crisis, as well as the fulfillment of a longtime dream.
The gamble has paid off, as, in a little over ten years, Fullá is making some of the best wines in the Languedoc. Location has helped, as his vineyard is near the village of Jonquières, in the heart of the Terrasses du Larzac, a stony, sandy-clay-over-Jurassic-limestone terroir that sits at the foot of the Larzac plateau. Some of the Languedoc’s finest wine estates, such as Mas Jullien, Domaine Virgile Joly, Château de Jonquières and Domaine Alain Chabanon, are nearby. Fullá says on his website that some of these winemakers are his friends, and he told me that Alain Chabanon is his cousin and mentor, having assisted him with his first several vintages.
His 17-ha estate is on land that originally belonged to four different owners. He has grouped these properties into three identical zones, totaling 13 hectares. Syrah, Grenache, Cinsault and Carignan vines of between 18 and 42 years of age are planted on 6.5 hectares and an equal number of hectares were replanted between 1999 and 2000 with 4.5 hectares of Syrah and 2 hectares of Mouvèdre.
Finding a more orderly row of vines in the Languedoc would be difficult.
Fullá’s father immigrated to the Montpellier area from Catalonia during the Spanish Civil War. To say that Fullá is a perfectionist is like saying that fellow Catalan Salvador Dalí was a skilled draftsman. This is a jewel of a vineyard: the soil under each vine is arranged almost stone-by-stone. The vines look as if they have been manicured, not pruned, and even the weeds that are left growing between vine rows to draw off excess moisture seem orderly.
To get the concentrated flavors that he seeks, Fullá employs an absurdly low 18-to-22 hectoliter-to-hectare yield ratio on his vines. This is about half of what most quality winemakers harvest from their vines. Severe pruning, leaf thinning, a green harvest to cull grapes, and double sorting of the grapes—once when they’re hand picked and then again on a sorting table, ensure the highest quality of grapes.
Fullá uses an integrated viticulture approach that stresses natural products, which reduces the use of fungicides and other chemicals. The vines are nourished and parasitic insects are kept in check, he says, by using manure and organic soil conditioners to increase their resistance to parasites and diseases.
Le Mas de l'Ecriture's weather station gets a workout.
“In order to implement this approach properly,” Fullá explains, “I installed my own independent weather meter equipped with sensors for measuring air temperature, relative humidity, rainfall, vine leaf moisture, soil humidity, the strength and direction of the wind, and the atmospheric pressure.” The station transmits the climatic data it collects every 15 minutes by computer to an agricultural engineer who works directly with Le Mas de l’Ecriture. The engineer and Fullá then run this data through a software program to decide how best to anticipate diseases (oidium, mildew, rot, etc.), while using the absolute minimum amount of treatment products.
High, wide and impressive
Written in foot-high letters at the winery entrance are quotations from French poet René Char. This is inspirational stuff, not the everyday musings of most vignerons; quotations about “seizing your courage” and “following your dreams.” Fullá says that the name of his estate—Le Mas de l’Ecriture—comes from his love of words (écriture is French for “writing”). For him, winemaking and writing are similar in that they’re both “genuine means of expression.”
The winery at Le Mas de l’Ecriture is as fastidious as the vineyard. After being destemmed, the grapes undergo a long fermentation, followed by a gentle pressing with a vertical, hydraulic wine press. Each separate parcel is vinified separately, and then aged, depending on the characteristics and the vintage, in either French or Russian oak. Fullá uses one-and-two-year-old barrels in a variety of sizes from 225 liters to 600 liters.
Only three types of wine, all red, are made here. Emotion Occitane is a blend of mainly Carignan, along with Grenache, Cinsault and Syrah. “It’s a wine that is easy to drink,” he says. The Carignan is the spine in this wine, according to Fullá. “It gives the wine structure. The Cinsault and Grenache need the Carignan to hang their freshness and fruit on,” he adds, “while the Syrah gives the wine finesse, softness and complexity.”
Unsurprisingly, given that its name, in French, means “Thoughts,” Les Pensées is, he says, a wine that makes you think. This is a wine with subtle elegance, made principally with Grenache noir, along with some Syrah, Cinsault and Carignan. Les Pensées is peppery, concentrated and very intense, with delicious, round tannins, licorice fruit and a long finish.
The estate’s top cuvée is the eponymously named l’Ecriture, made mainly from Syrah, with a touch of Grenache noir and Mouvèdre. The 2004 that I tasted was deeply colored, with big chewy fruit, ripe tannins, a spicy intensity, and a firm structure. A 2000 vintage of the same wine was even more concentrated, and the tannins were rounder and more elegant than the younger wine. This is a solid, powerful, well-balanced wine. He recommends decanting both Les Pensées and l’Ecriture into a carafe at least three hours before drinking them.
In just a short time, Fullá has begun to gain accolades from top wine reviewers. Robert Parker, in the February 2003 issue of The Wine Advocate, awarded the 2000 vintages of Les Pensées and l’Ecriture 90 and 89, respectively, out of 100 possible points. British wine writer Jamie Goode awarded the 2001 vintage of Les Pensées 92 out of 100, while the same vintage of l’Ecriture was awarded 95 out of 100.
The bestseller bin.
These are impressive wines; at a price in the upper range for Languedoc wines. In the UK, which, along with the US, are the two top export markets for Le Mas de l’Ecriture, Emotion Occitane is available for around £12.50. Les Pensées is priced around £19.95, and l’Ecriture is priced around £29.95. These seem to be reasonable prices, given the enormous amount of hand labor in the vineyard (cluster thinning and debudding, the hand harvesting, etc.) that is involved in getting those perfect grapes that Fullá demands. Then there are the low yields that limit production on his 13 hectares under cultivation to around 30,000 bottles annually.
Fullá says that he created Le Mas de l’Ecriture with the thought that “Beyond the spoken word lies action.” His actions, in a relatively short period of time, have produced impressive results, and his subtle, complex wines, like a good book, can touch you on many different emotional and rational levels. And that’s what art, whether it’s literary or sensory, is about, right? Viewed from this perspective, his wines seem to be worth every penny.
The wall.
