Journal

New from Val de Combrès (Luberon)

True to his playful, often psychedelic bottle labels, Luberon’s Val de Combrès makes lip-smacking, immediate wines of infectious energy that are easy to love.

He had a tricky 2022 vintage - as many in the south will attest to, drought has been a real problem, inflicting big losses on the vintage yield. Never afraid to mix things up Val has thought on his feet, resulting in a slightly different guise for the two wines we’re releasing today, La Lumiere and L’Ivresse.

Thankfully, to our mind it has worked in their favour. As rippling with pure fruit as ever, with some real fire in their belly, but never to the detriment of their give-me-more drinkability. Both bottled in spring last year, we’ve never released any of Val’s wine in a better place for drinking right now - lightly chilled in the long-awaited sun!

To recap, he farms just under 8 hectares around the villages of Oppède and Ménerbes, up in the hills that roll over the border into Provence. Working largely on his own in the vines, with biodynamic treatments and horse and plough, his wines stand apart from the typical, heavier style of the region by virtue of their lighter-bodied, vibrant and explosively fruit-driven expression. Make no mistake, these are wines for good times.

Read more about Val and order the wines here, or find them on the shelves of our Leeds shop.