Les Foulards Rouges

Jean-François Nicq of Les Foulards Rouges spent 12 years working in Côtes du Rhône, before settling in the Rousillion village of Montesquieu-les-Albères in 2001. With a degree in geology and oenology, followed by an introduction to the burgeoning natural wine movement by friends Thierry Puzelat, Marcel Lapierre and company, Jean-François found himself purchasing 9 ha of vines with the aim to produce clean and highly drinkable wines. Just six miles from the Mediterranean Sea and three miles from the Spanish border, Jean-François’s (now) 20 ha of vines rest on the French side of the historical Catalogne, with the Pyrénées mountains in close view. 

His vineyards are composed of multiple plots. On the lower, flatter part are mostly decomposed sandier soil producing his lighter, easy-to-drink cuveés. On the hillside, about 100 meters up, are his isolated single plots: Frida, Les Vilains, Les Glaneurs, Grenache, which lie directly on the bedrock with barely any topsoil and show more density. The soils are lightly worked with the help of his sweet mule, Uma, and in the cellar Jean-François keeps things simple and precise. As a result, his wines are a rare expression of this region, always able to retain so much freshness without compromising complexity. 

The Roussillon, particularly the catalan border, is a unique viticultural environment. Hot and dry and windswept by the Tramontane (they name wind tendencies in France), can be one of the most challenging terroirs to work. Jean-Francois Nicq’s parcels are fractured by small plots over 20 hectares and it’s his decades of experience in both vineyard and cellar that allows them to make wines of a certain freshness despite all of the factors driving the other direction. It’s a mix of cepage selection, the use of animals in the vineyards, bush vines and canopy management, carbonic maceration (and not!) and basically the results of working the same parcels by hand for over 20 years. There are few domaines more revered in French natural wine and that kind of feeling comes not just from the taste of ones wines but by the sharing of knowledge and support offered in a community still trying to figure it all out.