The Wines of Rouyré - Marie & Fred Goubet

We are Marie & Fred Goubet, and for years we've dreamed of making our own natural wines. After developing our natural wine business in South Korea and establishing La Cave à Manger, a haven for natural wines in Sète, we settled in the Tarn region, near Gaillac, and bought an old farmhouse which we renovated. Once the barn was emptied and the roof restored, we were able to install our first tanks and embark on this adventure.

An agricultural degree to acquire the minimum technical knowledge and years working with the best natural winemakers in France gave us some ideas about winemaking. Our first harvest, in 2022, went incredibly well. The grapes were perfectly ripe, disease-free, and bursting with sunshine: organic grapes, hand-picked; a super friendly team; up from 6:00 a.m. until nightfall. We're much better off here than behind a computer. Once the grapes are in the vats, it's time for vinification. Our choices were quite radical, at least on paper: to vinify only single grape varieties to preserve the personality of the terroir, no pump-overs or punch-downs (which accelerate alcoholic fermentation but agitate the wine too much for our taste), minimal pumping (which hardens the wine), and no oenological products (which make the winemaker's life easier but don't respect the living essence of the wine). That's the theory. In practice, we had to add a little SO2 (sulfites) to the white and rosé vats. A small dose, to prevent some lactic acid bacteria from proliferating. It's a common phenomenon that occurs during malolactic fermentation ("Did your wine go malolactic?"). But we're quite pleased with the result: fruity wines with lovely structure and a touch of sweetness. We'll try to improve on that with the second vintage. Winter passed gently, the wines aged peacefully in fiberglass tanks, aluminum tanks, and barrels. We're releasing our first four cuvées, including two sulfite-free wines. We've now vinified the 2023 vintage… seeking a balance between fruit ripeness and acidity. We're producing 7,500 bottles. We can't wait for spring.