Villa Volubilia - Epicuria Cabernet 2022

Two Bordelais’ top cuvée in Morocco: pure Cabernet Sauvignon, long maceration, bottled without filtration.

Gérard Gribelin and Philippe Gervoson come from Pessac-Léognan, where Cabernet Sauvignon is a benchmark grape. At the foot of the Zerhoun, Epicuria is the estate’s top cuvée, here as pure Cabernet Sauvignon from the Guerrouane AOG, vintage 2022. The grapes are picked at full ripeness and sorted by hand, bunch by bunch, then berry by berry. Fermentation is slow and protected from air, followed by a cold maceration and more than twenty days of post-fermentation maceration. Eighteen months of ageing, a quarter in barrel and three quarters in tank, come before bottling without filtration. The nose is full of black fruit and shows real ripeness: the classic Cabernet traits are present, but the Moroccan influence warms them with garrigue and ripe red pepper. The palate is powerful and seductive; the finish is long and melted, and the fruit returns.

Twenty kilometres from Meknès, at the foot of Mount Zerhoun, Domaine de la Zouina (Villa Volubilia) farms 85 hectares of vines in the heart of the Guerrouane AOG. Its name nods to Volubilis, the city founded by the Berbers in the 3rd century BC and later taken over by Rome, around which the region’s winegrowing once centred. Taken over in 2002 by two Bordelais, Gérard Gribelin (formerly of Fieuzal) and Philippe Gervoson (Larrivet Haut-Brion), the estate brought Pessac-Léognan know-how to clay-limestone soils. The climate is Mediterranean: dry summers swept by the chergui, the Saharan east wind that dries grapes fast, stormy autumns, wet winters. Farming is raisonnée. A wide range of grapes, from Viognier to Caladoc, feeds the Epicuria, Volubilia and Zouina lines.