France without France: Roussillon & Collioure-Banyuls
Year 15, No. 08
Highlights: Collioure-Banyuls 2025 | Roussillon 2025
It was Max Weinreich who said, “a country is a dialect with an army and navy”—except of course when it isn’t. Given that this is attributed to him at the end of WWII, he would have been very aware that the boundaries which make up modern Europe are in fact, ridiculous.
There are plenty of prominent examples across the continent which show this, such “Russia’s” Kaliningrad exclave plunked down between Lithuania and Poland. That’s a big one, but more subtle is the frontier between France and Spain. After all, Basque Country and Catalunya are mostly in Spain, but still having meaningful pieces across the border in France. Why? Because these are where borders were drawn centuries ago and we’re stickin’ to ‘em.
Thus you end up with a piece of France that I’ve long-been fascinated with which is Roussillon or in Catalan, “Catalunya Nord”. While the Treaty of the Pyrénées put it in France in the mid-17th century, when you cross the border from Spain, you still feel like you’re in Catalunya. The buildings generally look at the same. The cuisine is the same, albeit the croissants are a vast improvement. And of course, despite all the time that’s passed, there are still a good number of people that speak Catalan distinctly tinged with French.
One remarkable difference is in the wines however. When compared to south of the border, there is much more production on the French side. Their history of winemaking has remained uninterrupted during the 20th century which the famed (albeit now unfashionable) dessert wines of Maury and Banyuls show perfectly.
To date, the branding has all centered around the wines coming from the Roussillon region (called Pyrénées-Orientales officially) of which I’m happy to announce the release of the latest report for the top producers from the region.
But, in this France without France region, things have been a bit in flux and Roussillon is no long one singular entity as the Collioure & Banyuls producers having broken off (*) from the main, CIVR entity to go their own way in terms of promotion.
The upside to this is that it’s allowed me to release a new, separate report that focuses solely on Collioure & Banyuls which have always been very different from the larger Roussillon wines anyways.
They’re a much smaller group of only 50 or so wineries which pales in comparison to the 350 in the rest of Roussillon. They’re very aware of this however and have a lot of ambitious items in the works to gain attention. Most importantly though is that it’s simply a gorgeous location that I look forward to visiting again in the future.
Both of these reports and rated wines are available immediately for subcribers at the Classic & Pro levels on Hudin.com with Casual subscribers having access to the written reports.
Drink well, be well.
-Miquel
(*) Free to read
The Featured Reports
Collioure-Banyuls 2025
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Roussillon 2025
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