What's Pressoir drinking - Pedres Blanques 2019

Edouard Bourgeois
June 14, 2023

Just last week, I spent a couple nights at a dear friend’s in Montpellier. Known on his Instagram account as the punny name @accordhedoniste, he always finds ways to taste me on some eye-opening wine discoveries from tiny productions and under the radar producers. Together, we opened many fun wines including a mind-blowing bottle of “Pedres Blanques”. This wine is like nothing else. Driven by the talented Japanese couple of Rié and Hiro Shoji, this tiny domaine makes the epitome of what we refer to as a unicorn wine. After working for Fred Mugnier and Domaine de Chassorney in Burgundy, Rié and Hiro settled in Collioure, France where they founded Pedres Blanques, (“White Rocks” in Catalan), in 2017.

The young Japanese couple have since then produced just a handful of vintages that are really difficult if not nearly impossible to find, such as the 2020 vintage of which they only produced 230 magnums.

Their holdings cover 3.5 hectares of vines acquired from a retired vigneron in Languedoc-Roussillon, just above the town of Collioure and the vineyard is planted with 50 year old Grenache on granite.

Collioure is a charming little town in the Roussillon, France. It faces the Mediterranean Sea and this is where I spent many of my summer vacations as a kid for as long as I can remember. These family gatherings were filled with excitement and impacted my childhood with memories of fresh seafood, warm smells of wild rosemary and thyme, so exotic and unfamiliar to me who grew up in cold and rainy Champagne. I also remember the powerful wind, locally known as “tramontane” that would blow all kinds of flotation devices from the neighboring beaches. It really felt like Christmas in July when all the kids, me included, would gather on the other side of the beach to collect them!

The proximity of “La Grande Bleue”, the Mediterranean Sea, coupled with the forceful wind, can be felt in Pedres Blanques. The wine magically encapsules this brininess, a feature I rarely see in a red wine. I was also blown away by the energy and the life in the wine. Every time I would bring the glass to my nose, a new aromatic layer would unfold, revealing notes of smoke and stone before expressing aromas of tart cherries and clove with hints of candied, ethereal Grenache. A wine so profound, you can smell it for minutes and keep finding new accents.

On the palate, the personality is felt right away. While certainly not shy, Pedres Blanques sings loud and clear, but it is also pitch perfect. The acidity is the structural element of this well built but elegant wine and in a region that is so hot, with so many heavy wines, this is quite a masterstroke that should be pointed out.

Luckily for the Shojis, this arid and windy area leaves no chance for frost to strike and there is very minimum rot pressure which allows them to farm organically. They do not need to use copper either, but they do have to do everything by hand or with a rototiller. Unsulfured, the wine is raw but squeaky clean and you should not miss an opportunity to taste it.

Paired with delicious “Tielles Sétoises” from Maison Dassé, the brininess of the wine perfectly matches the saltiness of the dish, made of octopus, red peppers and tomatoes, wrapped in pastry