Cahors today is flipping the old script and making some of the most elegant, aromatically complex wines in Southwest France. The change we’ve seen in the last decade is that growers are returning to the highlands, the limestone Causses of the southern half of the appellation. From the 14th century to the 19th century, it was the elegant Malbec from these plateaus that made it one of France’s most famous wines. Only when phylloxera and repeated frosts came between the 1880s and 1960s that the region fell into obscurity, vineyards on the plateaus were abandoned in favor of the clay and gravel riverbanks where wines grow dense and dark and brooding. Julien Ilbert is one of a group of young vignerons who are looking to turn back time. Julien’s winery stands on three bedrock principles, strictly organic farming, strictly 100% Malbec, and an emphasis on elegance over power. This is still, however, an earthy wine, with aromas of iron, black pepper and bramble, blackcurrant and plum and lilac that lead to a velvety palate with quick-twitch tannins, gently yet firmly carrying flavors of earth and black fruit through the finish, which lingers with fresh brambly fruit and spice. This is a wine made for cassoulet.