Domaine Bomary Carignan Absolutely IGP Pays d'Herault, France 2019

Born in the USA, he grew up in the mountain town of Durango, Colorado. After graduating from college he took some time off to backpack on a shoestring budget around Europe. Captivated by Paris, he chose to stay a bit longer and support himself by teaching English. A “bit longer” stretched into 20-plus years as an American expat and over that time his passion for wine took root. After raising 2 sons, he and his Parisian wife decided they’d had enough of the city life and made a move to the countryside. They found a house in Southern France near the medieval village of Neffiès, in the Occitanie region, an area steeped in grape growing and wine making tradition.In order to pursue his passion, Bohdan completed a year long viticulture and oenology program at a local agriculture school, followed by years of apprenticing for a duo of local winemakers. In 2015, a friend of one the winemakers offered to sell 2 acres of old growth vines on a nearby hillside. Bohdan jumped at the chance and thus, a new winemaking career was born. He has since acquired 21 hectares of vine spaced out over 4 different locations in the countryside near Neffiès.

Domaine Bomary is a small operation in which the vineyards and cellar are tended to by Bohdan, two workers and, occasionally, some help from his wife. While selling a portion of his fruit to other winemakers, he selects the most outstanding parcels to produce single plot, single varietal wines. Domaine Bomary’s vineyards lie in close proximity to the village of Neffiès in Southern France. At about 20 minutes driving distance from the coast, the area’s climate is greatly influenced by the Mediterranean sea. Long dry and relatively hot summers are broken up by cool, rainy winters that last from October through May.

Farmed with a strict eye toward sustainability and a goal of eventually becoming 100% organic, every effort is made to maintain natural habitat in the vineyard ecosystem, increase biodiversity and strengthen the health of the land. Fertilization is organic and kept to a minimum. The grapes are dry farmed – a practice that is less and less common in the area. Bohdan’s philosophy on wine making is that less is more. This means no additives, no oak and only the minimal amount of interference is used to maintain quality control. His goal is for the wine to express the true nature of the grape variety and the place from which it came.