Tibouren is a bugger of a grape to grow, says young French winemaker Olivier Deforges. It's a fragile variety, he tells me, it produces low yields and it is susceptible to mildew. No wonder it only makes up 2 per cent of the vineyard area in Olivier's home region of Provence, one of the only places in the world you'll find it planted.

And yet the grape has been around for thousands of years. Thought to have originated in Mesopotamia, it was grown by the ancient Greeks, got its name in Rome, where it was grown near the River Tiber, and was carried to Provence by Caesar. Despite its tricky nature in the vineyard, then, the variety must have something going for it, or it would have been abandoned centuries ago.