Matthieu Barret, 'Petit Ours' Syrah 2022

Matthieu Barret is the 7th generation vigneron, joining his grandfather in Cornas in 1997.  But Barret is hardly one to rest on his laurels and blindly adopt the wisdom of the generation before him.  Beginning with his first vintage in 2000, Matthieu worked principally in the vineyard, applying his hand with organic viticulture. Not content with his end result, in 2006 he decided to radically change his vinification process by using less barrels and replacing them with concrete eggs.  In 2012, he stopped using machines in Cornas and replaced them with mules, horses, and manual labor. 

“Petit Ours” is a negociant bottling from Matthieu Barret who purchases organic Syrah from his friend Remi Pouizin in Visan. For this wine, Matthieu and Remi select younger vines to get a better expression of fruit.  The fruit is 100% destemmed and macerated for 15 days in concrete tank, then pressed and aged another 9 months in concrete.  The wine is very lightly sulfured only at bottling.