Domaine Pedres Blanques is located in a remote corner of Roussillon, in the Pyrenees foothills that separate this sliver of French soil from Spanish Catalonia. Carefully tended by a young, transplanted Japanese couple, Rié and Hirofumi Shoji, the 3.5-hectare Domaine overlooks the coastal village of Collioure, some 300 meters below on the Mediterranean.
The stony, arid, and windswept vineyard is at once a curse and a blessing. The harsh and thin topsoil, together with the fierce Tremontane winds, oblige Rié and Hiro to work their vines entirely by hand but also — due to the absence of frost and disease. – permit them to eschew entirely the use of copper. Their viticulture and winemaking are not only organic (certification pending) but also natural.
At present, the Domaine produces a single wine, a vin de France , Pedres Blanques Rouge. Made entirely from Grenache Noir, the vines grow on two stony, steeply- terraced, (planted in 1965 and 1989) over soils dominated by schist and granite.
Whole clusters are fermented ina vat over indigenous yeasts. The 30-day vinification is fully natural conditions, without temperature control or mechanical pumps. The wines are aged in neutral oak barrels for 6 months and bottled unfined, unfiltered, and without sulfur.
