The former business woman and talented wine maker Tolleret is the owner of the Domaine Mas d'Auzires vineyards outside of Montpeller in Languedoc, France. Irène Tolleret has been cultivating the classic Rhone varieties in shards (les Eclats) of quartzite- and iron-laced limestone at the foot of Pic Saint-Loup. The cool climate of this site makes for expressions of Syrah more akin to the Northern Rhone than to most of the Languedoc. Over the past seven years Tolleret has managed to successfully channel her passion for wine and entrepreneurial spirit into producing extraordinary wines. Her first wine in 2003, Les Eclats, was the first to leave the Mas d'Auzires vineyards and caused the wine world to quickly take notice. The leading French wine publication La Revue du Vin de France described this debut wine as a pure pleasure with magnificent fruit and the vintage quickly sold out. As Robert Parker notes, she produces wines with a wide aromatic spectrum: coconut and vanilla from the oak segue nicely into the wines sweetly ripe cherry fruit, but on the palate, chalk, smoked meat, faintly medicinal suggestions of iodine, and lightly bitter fruit pit notes, add depth and a welcome contrast with the wines sheer sweetness of fruit. At least 3-4 years of interesting cellar evolution seem assured.