Boulevard Napoleon 'Le Pal' Grenache Gris 2017

Trevor Gulliver is best known as the London restaurateur behind several successful establishments such as The Fire Station in Waterloo, Smithfield, and Bread and Wine, as well as several other food and drink related enterprises. One of these is Boulevard Napoléon, his winery situated in the village of La Livinière in the hills of the Minervois in the Languedoc, which happens to be close to his southern French holiday home.

While the scale is pretty small, as with all his projects it's a high quality operation and one in which he partnered with renowned winemaker Benjamin Darnault. All the wines come from old vineyards in the La Livinière appellation and while they're certainly among the best made here they generally only take the more generic 'Vin de Pays de l'Herault' appellation because they don't want to be constrained by the regulations otherwise imposed. The quantities of all the wines produced are always limited and each is a classic expression of what can be produced on the dry, stony slopes of this part of the south of France; they have a vibrancy and definition that marks them out from the crowd.