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Guy Capmartin is a third generation winemaker in Madiran. In 1987 he decided to leave the family’s estate, Domaine Barrejat, and stike out on his own. He hasn’t looked back and is working at adapting a traditional style of wine using modern wine-making techniques. Madiran is one of the great wines of South Western France and is somewhat overshadowed by its bigger, and more famous, neighbours – Bordeaux and the Languedoc – but there are some great wines.
Domaine Capmartin now consists of 8 hectares of vineyards and produces 3 red and 1 white wines. The vinyards are located on clayey-siliceous and calcareous clay soils. There is no use of pesticides at Domaine Capmartin, they prefer to mow down the midlde of the vine rows to get rid of weeds, they also produce their own manure for fertiliser and the estate is run almost to completely organic status and biodynamic principals.
Old-fashioned Madiran could be a bit of a harsh, tannic beast of a wine. In an effort to make a slightly more modern wine Capmartin adds 30% Cabernet Sauvignon to the Vieilles Vignes blend, the rest is 70% Tannat (the traditional grape of the area), this produces a much more approachable wine. The average age of the vines is 25 years old and the blend is aged in new oak for 12 months.
Domaine Capmartin Madiran Vieilles Vignes has a dark, inky-red colour. There are notes of black and red fruits on the nose, particularly blackcurrant, as well as spicy and eartjy notes. The wine is full, fruity and rich with a firm tannin structure. Unusually approachable, it can be drunk when young, but ideally could do with 3 or 4 years from vintage. This is a great wine for roasts, winter stews, cassoulet, duck confit or even shepherd’s pie.
UK research published in 2006 has identified the naturally occurring antioxidant compound in red wine responsible for the reduction in the risk of coronary heart disease and the lowering of overall mortality in regular, moderate consumers of red wine. The research also identified that Madiran wines have rarely occurring extremely high concentrations of those antioxidant compounds.
