Banyuls: Domaine Madeloc Cirera Red

Roussillon, though administratively merged with the Languedoc and Midi-Pyrénées into Occitanie since 2016, remains a distinct wine region with a strong Catalan identity, occupying the Pyrénées-Orientales in the far south of mainland France. Enjoying one of the sunniest, driest climates in the country and a varied terroir of schist, granite, limestone, and clay, it is best known for powerful, full-bodied reds built on Grenache, Syrah, Mourvèdre, and Carignan, alongside rich whites. Above all, it is the historic home of France's vins doux naturels - fortified sweet wines such as Banyuls, Maury, and Rivesaltes. Today, a dynamic community of small, often old-vine growers is earning the region growing international recognition for its dry wines.

A celebrated appellation covering four communes in the Pyrénées-Orientales - Collioure, Port-Vendres, Banyuls-sur-Mer, and Cerbère - where over 650 hectares of schist vineyards are terraced across steep slopes down to the Mediterranean. Its speciality is vin doux naturel, a fortified sweet wine made by adding pure alcohol to the fermenting must to halt fermentation and retain the grape's natural sweetness, chiefly from old-vine Grenache. The wine is traditionally aged oxidatively in oak casks or glass 'bonbonnes' left out in the blistering sun, developing rich notes of dried fig, cocoa, coffee, and walnut.