Res Fortes winemaker buys Domaine de l’Arpege

Moritz Bak, the winemaker of Res Fortes in Roussillon, has acquired Domaine de l’Arpege in the southern French region, giving his production a serious boost.

Bak (pictured), half Dutch, half German but a longterm UK resident, has been making wine in Roussillon since 2014 and currently has three wines under the Res Fortes label: a red, a white and a rosé.

For the last four harvests he has purchased grapes and rented winery space but has now acquired his own winery and with it 14 hectares of organically farmed vineyards.

Domaine de l’Arpege, which will now be renamed, is located near Maury in the village of Saint-Paul-de-Fenouillet.

Having begun with just 2,800 bottles, Bak’s production is set to shoot up to 28,000 and he told the drinks business he hopes to build a new winery by 2020 that is fully sustainable as well as further increasing his production capacity by another 30-35%.

Previously profiled by db, Bak worked a vintage at Château Bauduc in Bordeaux before studying oenology at Plumpton College in the UK.

He has worked across the wine world in Australia, South Africa, California, New Zealand and Germany at wineries from Penfolds to Dr Loosen and Kendall Jackson before finding himself in Roussillon where he began to make his own wine.

His rosé in particular has received several accolades and the wines are distributed in the UK, US and Belgium currently.