Before settling down amid the vines, walls and soil of the Clos des Fées, Hervé Bizeul's peregrinations had been many, flitting around the wine business and the world in general. As a sommelier, as a journalist… but most of all, as a son of this hard ground, with a real pride in Roussillon. It was one day in the late 1990s, looking out onto this desert of scrubland, with its dry stone walls and vines planted in pick-hacked holes amid the green oaks with their twisted branches, that he decided to take his passion for wine to its logical extreme by becoming a wine grower himself. Thanks to his hard work in the vines – but also through his formidable enthusiasm for selling and promoting his wine with a talent for forging links that is somewhat uncommon among growers, who enjoy the solitary company of their vines and can be uneasy with commercial relationships – Bizeul would be quick to find success. And this success would enable him to live comfortably and develop his domain by expanding it through the purchase of parcels of land (both already planted and awaiting plantation), hiring workers, buying increasingly advanced equipment and continuing to tour the wine shows of France and the world, proudly flying the flag of his own wines as well as all the others in his region. But if you think Hervé Bizeul has retired his pen, then think again: today, he is among the most prolific contributors to be found in the blogosphere.

“Images dérisoires” is a rare, unusual, terribly charming wine. It is the product of Hervé Bizeul’s desire to do something new. In 2005, therefore, he planted a selection of Tinto fino (the local name for Rioja’s emblematic grape variety) sourced from a excellent terroir in Ribeira del Duero (the region of Vega Sicilia, the mythical Spanish wine). The juice from these young wines – the first vintage of which is 2010 – is blended with old Carignan planted shortly after WW2 at a relatively high altitude of 450m. It is completed with a suggestion of Syrah. A totally original blend, but whose Franco-Spanish origins pair perfectly with this arid, mineral Roussillon terroir.