The medieval wines of Domaine du Cardona in Fraïssé-des-Corbières, one of the treasures of the Louvre museum

Fraïssé-des-Corbières. Few people can locate it on a map. A little over 200 inhabitants, with Durban as a stopover village for local shops, we cannot say that Fraïssé is seeking visibility and notoriety. They are right. Better to live hidden and relaxed than blinded by too much sunlight. The Desnier family is part of the first category. For four generations of winegrowers in the Corbières, settled in Fraïssé, they have understood that with the other wine revolution, much more serious than that of 1907 because it was insidious over time, it was necessary to survive in this epileptic globalization, to shape a product not like the others.

Sealed with wax

And what better than the history of the Mediterranean to find an angle of conquest. The very essence of this great basin that is Mare Nostrum, has it not developed through shattering battles whose evolutions have shaped our destiny. Passionate about history, the Desnier family is. François Desnier, who set up Le Domaine du Cardona with his brother Bruno, has since the launch in 1999 of this concept of historic artisanal wines, built his own destiny like one wins a battle, with patience and bravery in moments of doubt.
As a good history lover, bookish research on wines since Antiquity, with all that this entails as mystical aspects as soon as one becomes interested in the Bacchic beverage, built the basis of what he wanted to produce . The first bottle of hypocras “Love Potion” to come out of its cellars was the festive drink of Medieval Europe. A daring move for this 21st century which has barely begun, to put on the market a red wine with spices, with honey, cinnamon, cloves, nutmeg and ginger. Stimulating, digestive and aphrodisiac virtues for this first hypocras bottled in a stoneware bottle, sealed with wax and labeled with a period painting. Far removed from trendy design skittles. Then, after this masterstroke, followed the white hypocras and the claret-rosé of the Middle Ages.

Crushed with a sledgehammer

Maxime Desnier, who welcomes us into his cellar with a little 5° floating in the air, is therefore the fourth generation of Desniers. Chef, he has since converted to the family business, specializing in winemaking, which is very diversified. It goes from a short fermentation similar to the brewers, for their sweet mead with garrigue honey, to cold maceration, for the hypocras. There, he introduces large pockets of fine fabric into the vats, where he will have previously crushed various spices with a sledgehammer. Or again, for this Moretum bottled in a black stoneware of the best effect – the top of the range of the Domaine – and aged in oak barrels, then flavored with blackberry. A monastic beverage, strong in honey and blackberries, it was drunk in abundance among the tonsured, soaking the clothes during pious and promiscuous medieval feasts.
François, father of Maxime, was a chemist and laboratory technician before creating the Domaine du Cardona. Starting from single grape varieties such as Merlot or Malbec, mainly from Corbières, he then experimented in a sort of alchemy, the addition of flavors based on spices and honey, which would give this medieval or Antique touch to his wines.

Let's toast with Santa

Not stopping there, it was from 2015 and the contract concluded with the National Monuments (see box), that the other ranges appeared. Antiquity, obviously, a stone's throw from La Narbonnaise, could not cut it. The V Gallo-Romain in white, an offering wine according to the legend of Cybèle, honeyed, flavored with wild juniper and pepper and the other V, from the antique range, in red, honeyed with bay leaf, rosemary and pepper, served as an aperitif “Gustatio” among the Romans. These went even further, because they cut the flavored white wine, by far the most consumed by its conquerors, with fresh water. We kill them for less than that in certain corners of Corbières.
With 60,000 bottles per year, the Domaine du Cardona, which is growing more and more, does not rule out moving in the near future to more spacious premises with more convenient access for deliveries. All you have to do is enter through the door of flavors into our rich history, with these original bottles perfect for toasting with Santa Claus.