Franck Lihour’s great grandfather purchased Domaine Castera in 1895. For many decades after, the farm was like any other in the area, with a couple hectares of pasture for cattle, a couple for vegetables and wheat, and a couple hectares of vines. The Lihours made wine mostly for the local village market in Monein or nearby Pau, but it was never the focus of the family’s efforts until Franck’s parents Christian and Pierrette expanded the vineyards in the 1980s, thus when Franck was born and did the work of growing up as a child, he did it among vineyards, watching his parents make wine. From a very early age he knew his vocation, and he worked harvest internships in Bordeaux, but it wasn’t until he worked a season at a wine shop in Pau that he truly understood the sort of wine he wanted to make. Exposed to wines from all over France and the world beyond, where sharper cut and lower intervention wines were in the 2010s really coming into the mainstream, he realized that his own vineyards had incredible unrealized potential. A few years of work abroad gave him all the tools to return home and begin to take over his family vineyards. Franck wanted to proceed respectfully and cautiously but he still told his father, “I am going to make two wines on my own, and you can’t say anything about them.” They were Tauzy and Caubeigt, made from single vineyards, vinified with ambient yeasts, and aged in used barrels. “Why I wanted to use oak but not have the taste of it was a mystery for my father,” he recalls. But Christian liked the results and grew to trust his son. However, when Franck insisted on adding no sulfur during the vinification of the dry wines, as well as not using any CO2 at all, Christian said, “That’s it! I’m staying in the vineyards!”. The family sold its last cow, Meuglemme, in 2019.