Les Terrasses de Régis Boucabeille Côtes du Roussillon White 2017

Les Terrasses de Régis Boucabeille is a white that punches well above its weight. A Côtes du Roussillon blend of Grenache Blanc and Maccabeu that’s fast becoming our go-to weekday evening wine. It sees no oak barrels, leaving it crisp with scents of lily, pine nuts, bitter almonds, zingy citrus, cut grass and exotic melon. Well chilled and fresh, it’s a perfect summer wine and exceedingly good value.

Domaine Boucabeille grow their vines on the severe schist slopes of the Força Réal hill just outside Perpignan, one of the oldest inhabited areas of France. This area has a long and illustrious winemaking history, but was abandoned in the early 20th Century as it was deemed too hard to work. Jean Boucabeille and his son Régis are not afraid of a bit of hard graft though. They farm organically so as not to disrupt the microbial life, biodiversity and their 100 beehives; they’ve planted 650 new cork oak trees to help stopper their bottles; and everything in the vineyard is done gently by hand. And when the wines are this good, long may they continue.