Domaine Labranche Laffont

Tannat’s power and Madiran’s microclimate combine to make one of France’s truly big wines in terms of tannin content. Madiran’s viticulture fell into steep decline with phylloxera and continued to fall during the long, dreary aftermath. In 1953, plantings of Tannat here were down to 15 acres of vines.

Its revival began in the 1970s. Today, Madiran has some 3,212 acres of vines of various stripes, with the majority in Tannat.

Christine Dupuy took over her family’s six-hectare (15-acre) wine estate, Domaine Labranche Laffont, in 1992 when her father died unexpectedly. She was 23 at the time and the estate had been in her family since before the French Revolution. By chance she had just finished her degree in enology, but she had little practical experience. So she went to neighboring Château d’Aydie, Domaine Capmartin, and Domaine La Chapelle Lenclos, all of whom were among the most prestigious domains in the appellation at the time. During that first year they helped this precocious young vigneronne get off on the right foot.

Christine has come a long way since those early days, and today she farms 50.65 acres of vines, all hand-harvested and tended organically. Of those, 43 acres are devoted to red varieties and the rest to dry and sweet whites. Insofar as she works to refine Tannat’s inherently tannic grip, her red wines are modern in style, but she loses none of the textural density that made the grape famous. Her reds are rich, ripe, and round—and surprisingly elegant