H&B Maury
Maury – a dark dessert wine – is made from very old and very low yielding vines of Grenache Noir, these grapes providing very high levels of concentration.
Maury’s soils, composed of schistose shale, offers naturally weak yields, around 25hl per hectare. The heat, which is stored by the deep and filtering soils, is restored during the night helping the grapes achieve a high level of concentration. Ageing is in 60% very old foudre (significantly larger than typical oak barrels, often with the capacity to hold more than a thousand liters of wine) and 40% demi muids (a French term for 600-liter capacity oak barrels).
H&B choose to make their Maury by working within two criteria. Firstly the wine fermentation is stopped late at a rather low residual level of sugar (less than 100gr/l). Secondly they select grapes with a deep tannic structure and elaborate a full wine before the addition of pure alcohol (to stop fermentation). Thus H&B Maury finds a perfect balance between sugar and tannin without using a high acidity level, as it is often the case.
With aromas of cherry, gingerbread and bramble, a palate of dark and candied fruit. Immediately enjoyable, it promises a long evolution and keeping for several decades, which will see it gain in complexity and richness.
About the Producer
Hecht & Bannier
Maison Hecht & Bannier is a ‘Negociant Eleveur’ dedicated to sourcing and then blending wines from the Mediterrean regions. They started in 2001 with partners Gregory Hecht and François Bannier assembling four cuvées of Southern France appellations.
Convinced that the Roussillon to Provence region has not yet received the international recognition that it deserves for its quality and diverse vineyards, they have expanded their passion for blending and now visit hundreds of producers to select the best juice. Often the grapes come from vineyards in the cooler foothills where it isn’t unusual to see hundred year-old vines.
The goal is to have the H&B label become the bench-mark for wines in a range of appellations, allowing wine-lovers to discover the extraordinary quality and wealth of the region.
Each blend is usually based on 5 to 10 samples from the 15-30 that have been pre-selected; some very good wines are rejected because they do not express H&B’s vision of the appellation. The blend can change between vintages to remain true to each specific geographical origin, while emphasising particularly successful grapes or vineyards in each harvest.
Once the long selection process has come to an end, H&B then begin to create the blends and decide the ‘elevage’ options. The overiding aim is to conserve the typical Mediterranean strength in their wines while preserving balance and vitality for all the appellations produced.
In 2022 they achieved B Corp certification. This international label rewards businesses that aspire to be agents of change and measure their social and environmental impact, accelerating the transition towards a more inclusive, fair, and regenerative economy.
