Os Goliardos - European Terroir Wines

Eric Pfifferling, a trained beekeeper, inherited in 1989 from his mother 3 ha of old vines in Tavel, between Avignon and Uzès, but until 2002 he delivered the grapes to the local cooperative. Today the farm has 20 ha of vineyards with 17 in production, divided between Tavel with 10 ha, the name Lirac with 2ha, in the west of Nimes, and a small part along the Rhône in St Genies de Comolas. Several soils make up the mosaic of terroirs: limestone, sandy, white clays called Terres blanches, red clays called Terres chaudes and slate (Lauze). Grenache, Cinsault, Syrah, Carignan, in red, and Clairette, Grenache blanc and Bourboulenc in white, are the cultivated varieties. In 2002, inspired by the wines of the naturalist group of the Beaujolais boys animated by Marcel Lapierre, Eric became convinced that he could make light, fluid wines without additives. Today he recognizes that he may have followed the Beaujolais style too much, with semi-carbonic maceration in whole bunches and that, little by little, he found his style that integrates more the southern characteristics of its varieties and its terroir. The wines continue to be distinctive within the usual image of local wines, with little color, delicate tannins, aromatic freedom and high purity. But the real secret of the wines of l’Anglore lies in the passion that Eric, accompanied today in the field by the two sons Thibault and Joris, invest in agriculture, in the reflection on the soil, the plant material, the management of the climatic areas of the last years. Today it feels like a house with the great happiness of developing the heritage collectively, initially built alone with the wife Marie, and which will have been enriched with the arrival of the children in 2018, giving a youthful energy to the parents to go further, to be able to draw new paths and dare. An encouragement that promises exciting wines and some future news such as the development of whites under the responsibility of Thibault and Joris. Tavel was subtly fertilized and pollinated by beekeeper Eric and his family, taking the wine into a human and mystical dimension where the Mediterranean resumes its mestizo vocation, the crossing of liquid light.