Matassa Vin de France "Coume De L'Olla" Blanc 2023

Matassa Coume de l’Olla Blanc is a natural, organic, vegan skin-contact white wine aged on lees made by Domaine Matassa with the Macabeo and Muscat varieties in the French region of Languedoc-Roussillon.

Tom Lubbe is a New Zealander who spent his childhood in South Africa and later trained as a winegrower in France with Gerard Gauby. During this three-year period, he met the daughter of his mentor, Nathalie Gauby, and that was the beginning of a romantic and professional relationship. Together they set up Domaine Matassa in 2002 in the village of Vivier (Languedoc-Roussillon), a 15-hectare estate making unusual wines with no oenological additives.

Matassa Coume de l’Olla Blanc is made from recovered vineyards lying on a hillside at 500-600m above sea level. These vines are planted on calcareous clay soil with a high iron content. They are cultivated using organic agriculture with organic treatments and the harvest is manual.

Whole grapes have been left to macerate whole cluster for 10 to 12 days on the skins giving it some extra vibrancy, and then they are gently pressed. The resulting must ferments spontaneously with native yeasts in stainless steel tanks. The wine then ages on lees for 8 months in 2,000-litre concrete tanks. It is bottled without filtering or adding sulphites. Very low alcohol at just 10% alcohol.

Matassa Coume de l’Olla Blanc is a wine with great purity and length. A natural white with a wonderful strangeness.