Badel’s cuvée Les Mourrays comes from a single-vineyard of 50-year-old Syrah vines perched directly above the village of Limony, also on decomposed granitic soils. On a south facing hill, elevated at 300m it’s a site that gets great sun exposure as well as cooling winds.
Fermentation is made up of 75% destemmed, 25% whole bunch and sits on skins in concert tanks for 21 days. It is then pressed off into old 3-5 years oak barrels and aged for 9 months.
Hailing from the Northern Rhône and a family of local farmers, Nicolas Badel trained as an engineer before deciding that winemaking was where his heart was. Nicolas returned to school and studied viticulture, spending many years working in other people’s vineyards. In 1999 he acquired his vineyards in Saint-Joseph and Condrieu near the town of Limony (Northern most part of the Rhone Valley) and began by selling his wine to the local cooperative, waiting until he was ready to release his own wine in 2010 from his own 7 hectares. He is not one to rush anything; instead, he is a steadfast perfectionist who prefers to take his time and do things the right way. He has been certified organic since the very beginning and is now in the process of carefully working biodynamics into his vineyards, with the intent of making the finest wines possible from his terroir.