Producer Simon Busser

FRANCE, CAHORS

Simon Busser's winery is located on a bend of the River Lot, near the small village of Prayssac 20 minutes west of Cahors, a region equidistant from the sunny Mediterranean and the rainy Atlantic, best known for its earthy red wines and powerful. Here Simon, together with his wife, cultivates approximately 5 hectares of vineyards that he inherited from his father. The grapes are mainly Côt, Merlot and Chenin Blanc, together with some rows of Trousseau and Savignin brought here by friends. No weeding in the vineyard, tilling the soil with a horse-drawn plow, with a formal conversion to organic in prospect. The winemaking takes place without additives, and Simon espouses the precepts of non-invasiveness, in a "traditional" key of a pre-enological time, a style he learned from his father and neighbors in Praysac. The result of low yields, the hand-harvested and crushed-destemmed bunches give a must that ferments spontaneously, with indigenous yeasts, in concrete and steel tanks, without enzymes, without oenological clarification and without filtration. This is how authentic Cahors are born, without compromise or mediation.