Give a gift they’ll savour all year long. Gift a Membership Now

Raiders of the Lost Rivesaltes

Image

Finding a forgotten stash of old wine is an enduring fantasy of the oenophile, in which a treasure trove of dusty bottles is revealed by a sweep of torchlight in some forgotten, cobwebbed cellar by an intrepid Indiana Jones figure. Philippe Gayral is the man with the fedora and whip in this case, although he hunts out entire casks of ancient wine and brings them to us in new, smartly-labelled bottles, as pictured.

Dubbed The Archivist of Roussillon by Jancis in 2013, Gayral subsequently adopted this moniker for his business which specialises in old vintages of Rivesaltes, the sweet, fortified...