About This Vineyard
Eric and Christine Saurel began bottling wine under the Montirius label with the 1996 vintage (the name is a contraction of their childrens’ names: Manon, Justine, and Marius). Eric is the fifth generation to assume the mantle of vigneron in the Saurel family. During the summer of 2002, the family and its contractor worked like crazy to build a state of the art cellar next to the family house. They live on the Plateau des Garrigues between Vacqueyras and Sarrians, next to their Le Clos vineyard on an edge of the plateau.
This slope falls steeply down to low-lying vins de pays vineyards, and on the hillside they put in a three-level gravity operated cellar. The top level is for receiving the grapes and crushing them; the lower two levels house the vast concrete tanks in which the wine is made and aged. A water reclamation system was built using sand, soil, and various plants for purifying all water used in the winery’s operations (and hats off to the Saurels for taking this step, given the enormous amount of water used in wine production worldwide that ends up being wasted).
The Montirius vineyards have been organic since 1990 and certified biodynamic since 1999. The Saurels make wines with a decided emphasis on purity–they are made entirely in large cement vats without any wood influences.
