Tasted in Les Labourons with Valentine Mathieu, 12 February 2024.
Domaine de Valma
121 impasse du Clos des Labourons
69820 Fleurie
Tel: +33 7 89 83 94 94
Domaine Instagram
Last Springtime (2023) I was lucky to taste the first vintage from this domaine – those wines obviously warranted a visit to the domaine !!
Domaine Valma was created by Valentine and Stéphane Mathieu in the summer of 2021 – which was also their first vintage. Valentine explains “I didn’t have a lot of experience, I worked in marketing for wines – but not making them! So I did a BAC Agricole – by correspondence – then did a stage in Champagne then another with Chateau Thivin. 2021, our first vintage, gave us good acidities but not a lot of grapes due to frost – plus there was a lot of triage to do. We started with 2 hectares of vines and then another 4 came from a cousin of Philippe Pacalet. Then there was 1.5 ha in La Madone that became available which we couldn’t pass up. So in 2022 we had cuvées of Chapelle des Bois and Madone plus two cuvées from Les Labourons. Whereas, in 2021 we had just the two cuvées of Labourons – one from tank and one from 6 barrels – actually, we had planned to make just 1 cuvée of Labourons but because the two parcels had very different styles we chose to have two cuvées – the first picked and the later picked. All is done by hand, all with the stems too – all cement tank except the small cuvée of Chapelle du Bois which was an epoxy tank. A couple of remontages to start but not more if I don’t think it’s needed.”
“In 2023 we had some demi-muids from Italy! I like to use a different colour wax capsule per cuvée – so 4! We have been organic since the start and right now we have more wine exported from France trhan sold here – of course, I’d like to have more sales in France as we are here! But in the first vintages, it has been easier to export – we already two importers in the US – and the Italians wanted to buy right from the start. All have been bottled for commercialisation by us right from the start too.”
So, the domaine covered 5.5 ha when I visited and there are further possibilities for more, but Valentine is on her own doing everything in the vines so…
The wines…
What a super young domaine to watch – I previously found one of their 21s great in that difficult vintage – and there are more in this 22 vintage too – these are not just bottles with nice labels and pretty wax capsules – well done!
2022 Fleurie Les Labourons
Vines mainly from the 50s – old goblet-trained vines.
A quite direct nose but with a little cushion. Hmm, that’s a cool and mouth-watering wine – but with the flavour of Fleurie! A broad and delicious, almost chewy finishing flavour – full-flavoured and with fine character. I think this is excellent.
2022 Fleurie Les Labourons Les Rangs Tard
More than half of the vines are from the 1950s, the rest from 2008 and 2016.
Plenty of colour. Similar depth of aroma but more open higher tones – this is very perfumed. Slightly darker fruit, lithe and more fluid – but there’s still depth to this darker fruit. This is super though less cliché Fleurie today – it’s a delicious wine.
This 17 days earlier harvested than the Rangs Tard in 2023! ‘It’s not just really steep, we are almost directly onto the rock here.’
A silky, almost cushioned perfume here, darker red but more intermediate between the previous two wines. Direct, mineral, beautifully shaped – there’s an architecture here. A little tannin surfaces in the middle to finishing flavours to remind you what a baby it is – but what a width of quite mineral, faintly saline, finishing flavour – it’s a sustained, quite juicy finish too – a seamless wine and it could be a great one!
2022 Fleurie La Chapelle des Bois
More weight and width – it’s a darker bass-line of perfumed fruit aroma here. More lush, more mouth-filling – you can taste the barrel elevage – but it really is discreet. Then the middle and finishing flavours are texturally beautiful. The larger scale to this finish also fades ever so slowly – I’m not sure that it’s really ‘better’ than La Madone but it’s a very different character – larger in scale and a little more supple cushioned.