Gold capsule. Faurie farms just 0.2 hectares of Le Méal, planted in the 1940s. In 2020, this was blended with selected parcels from his near-100-year-old vineyard at Les Bessards. With its direct-south exposure, Le Méal is perhaps the hill’s warmest site and produces the area’s most layered and hedonistic wine. Faurie calls the wines from here “vin noblesse”, in this blend providing opulence and texture. The Bessards component gives “the skeleton”—the wine’s structure and mineral drive—as well as lifted perfume. This blend is roughly 60% Les Bessards and 40% Le Méal, assembled at harvest time. As for all of Faurie’s reds, this uses 100% bunches, and the winemaking was the same as for the wine above. It was bottled unfiltered, by hand, from two used demi-muids. Faurie describes this wine as “une force”, and he’s right. Decades will not weary it!