Lionel Maurel is the owner of a tiny domain at Nebian, where he makes just two red wines based on four classic Languedoc grape varieties. Lionel is a young wine producer who is focussed on quality, unsurprisingly they are farmed organically, though he is not certified, and immense care is taken of his vines, with each parcel pruned differently, some are trained as low goblets, some as cordon de royat, and others single guyot, with the old Carignan in traditional goblets.

Yields are kept deliberately low, at a maximum of 30 hl/ha, and the grapes treated very gently during the harvest. After desteming, the fermentations are long and slow, with the extraction managed using short periods of remontage, which can be as short as five minutes (I had never come across anyone using less than 15 minutes before I met Lionel!). The wines are presses gently in an old basket press and then ages in cuve and old barriques. Each variety and parcel is kept separate until the final blending of the wines.

The cellar work is performed meticulously, and unusually no sulphur dioxide is added until the bear minimum is added when the wines are transferred to the barrels.
These are serious wines made with extreme care by a young winemaker who is destined to become one of the stars of Languedoc.