Tandem is the fruit of an unlikely partnership born in 2003, when Alain Graillot — the celebrated Syrah producer behind Domaine Graillot in Crozes-Hermitage — crossed paths with Jacques Poulain, the Bordeaux-trained winemaker who has overseen Domaine des Ouled Thaleb since 1997, on a cycling trip through Morocco. Founded in 1923 and the oldest active winery in the country, Domaine des Ouled Thaleb sits in Benslimane, around 50 kilometres northeast of Casablanca, where two distinct parcels supply the 100% Syrah for this wine: Rommani, with its black clay-limestone soils on gentle hills at roughly 600 metres altitude, and Aïn Brachoua, a lower-lying site of sandy schist and gravel open to Atlantic breezes; both are harvested by hand in August.

The grapes are destemmed and fermented in concrete vats with indigenous yeasts, followed by a deliberately short maceration of seven to eight days aimed at finesse over extraction, before ageing half in concrete and half in French oak barrels from cooperage François Frères, with no filtration or fining. The result is a deep garnet wine with violet hues, a nose of blackberry, black cherry, violet, black pepper, garrigue and liquorice, and a palate that is broad and juicy with silky tannins, a savoury tapenade note, and a long, peppery, herb-edged finish that reads as remarkably fresh for its latitude; the Revue du Vin de France awarded it 17/20, describing it as a wine of authorial character that gains complexity with age.