Cocoricot 2023, Chateau Les Croisilles, Cotes du Lot, Cahors

A blend of Malbec and Merlot, this wine has been made using carbonic maceration, giving it a juicy fruit forward flavour. It’s packed with lots of berry fruit notes, some hints of florality as well a subtle earthy quality. It has lovely light tannins and a nice roundness making it a easy drinking wine.

Brothers Germain and Simon Croisille are very much at the front of the ‘wave’ in the appellation, having taken over from their parents within the last few years. This second-generation wine-growing family have built their domaine ‘from the ground, up’.

Their parents, Bernard and Cécile started as tenant farmers on uncultivated land in 1979, it took them until 1984 before they were able to deliver a crop from their newly established seven hectares of vines to the co-operative cellar in Parnac. A decade later, they elected to break away from the co-op system altogether and started a relationship with a local grower instead and began to vinify their own wines. Germain joined the business and was joined by his younger brother in 2015. The family Croisille are now finally self-sufficient, controlling a total of 30 hectares across the slopes and plateaux of the region.

The vineyards have been worked organically since 2010 and have been fully certified since 2013 and are mostly harvested by hand.

It is an equal blend of Malbec and Merlot. The wine is vinified using a ten day carbonic maceration before ageing for 8 months in concrete vats and is a ‘no added sulphur’ wine.