Quintessentially Quaffable Wines: Languedoc-Roussillon
Quintessentially Quaffable Wines: Languedoc-Roussillon
For centuries, the wines of France have been a benchmark for winemakers the world over. And for damn good reason. Perhaps it was a divine message from Bacchus when, in 640 CE, the Romans in Burgundy first noted that the characteristics of the wines grown in one soil differed vastly from neighboring soils. With this revelatory celestial knowledge, they miraculously invented the concept of “climat” (taken from the Greek word, klima, meaning the slope and angle of the sun in relation to the ground). They even had the ingenuity and foresight to build retaining walls of stone between the vineyards of different parcels, some of them going down 20 feet or more to keep the soils and vines separated from one another, thus maintaining the integrity of the climat.
By the 11th century in France, the climat system was already being documented and implemented by Benedictine and Cistercian monks who were growing wine in Burgundy. According to UNESCO:
In Burgundy, since the High Middle Ages, under the impetus of Benedictine and Cistercian monastic orders and the Valois Dukes of Burgundy, the identification of wine with where it was produced has been pushed to the highest degree, giving rise to an exceptional system of land parcels. The many vintages resulting from this mosaic, issued from two unique varieties (Pinot Noir and Chardonnay), illustrate the extreme diversity.
This idea of the climat system led to the concept and establishment of the internationally implemented idea of terroir and the system of the appellation d'origine contrôlée (AOC). Having taught entire classes on terroir, I am sure I could probably write the rest of this article about the intricacies and complexities of terroir, biodynamic winemaking, etc. But I’m going to synthesize the explanation in order to talk further about my experiences of the wines and winemakers of the Languedoc-Roussillon, which produces some of the most terroir-driven wines in the world. In the case of wine, terroir is essentially the convergence of soil composition, climate, microclimate, geomorphology (how the surrounding landscape interacts with the vineyard) and the flora and fauna in or around a specific parcel of land.
From 2005 to 2010, I worked as the Southern California sales manager for a French wine import company in Los Angeles. Each year, my boss and I would spend many weeks in France visiting the domaines of our winemakers and tasting their new vintages. In 2006, we made the first of many trips to the Languedoc-Roussillon. Meeting these pioneering winemakers completely altered the course of my life. Not only did they awaken my palate to some of the most robust and intricate wines made in the world, they also gave me a firsthand understanding of the meaning of terroir. Everything I thought I knew about wine up to that point went out the window. These are some of my memories from those impressionable visits:
I first met Jef (Jean-François) and Cathy Izarn of Borie La Vitarèle at their beautiful home in Causses-et-Veyran, nestled quaintly near their breathtaking vineyards in the legendary region of Saint-Chinian. This region is the oldest wine-producing region of Languedoc and one of the oldest in the world. During the 14th century, wines from the Saint-Chinian area were actually used in Parisian hospitals for their supposed healing properties.
That lovely spring afternoon, my former boss and I got an extensive tour of the vineyards of Borie La Vitarèle with Jef and Cathy before sitting down to a Michelin-level, 4-course lunch at their rustic kitchen table to sample their phenomenal wines. As their young daughter Camille and their dog ran carefree about the house, we ate and drank merrily beneath the lush maquis and fragrant garrigue flanking their picturesque vignoble [vineyard]. From the moment I took my first sip of Les Terres Blanches, it was indelibly imprinted on my taste buds for eternity. And I can say without hesitation, that to this day, it is one of the most sumptuous wines I have ever consumed.
“C’est pas grave” [“It’s no big deal”], intoned the soft, yet husky voice of Luc Lapeyre as he motioned us into his tasting room. He already knew that we would be late, as his good friend Jef Izarn of Borie La Vitarèle had phoned ahead to tell him that our 4-course lunch with them had spilled over into our next appointment. It would be easy to be intimidated by the stature of this giant bear of a man, but one look into his smiling, flickering eyes and you know you are in the presence of both a connoisseur and a genius winemaker. His quiet humor and methodical demeanor give way to a sense of warmth and calm. This is not a man who makes false movements. We saddled up to the tasting counter at his vineyard in Trausse, where he began to uncork the newest vintage of San Brès, his latest entry-level wine.
My very first tasting with Luc had taken place on a picnic blanket in the middle of his bucolic vineyards in Minervois with some wild boar and blueberry sausage paired with goblets of his magical Les Amouriers [The Lovers]. And that’s exactly what happens when Luc’s wines cross your lips and land on your tongue…you fall in love. Perhaps it’s because Luc himself is such a lovable man. While his stature may be imposing, he emanates a playful, uninhibited charm coupled with a sly, mischievous wit.
A year had passed and here we were again with Luc, our pens poised over blank notepads, inquiring about the varietal breakdown of his new San Brès. Dismissively he waved his massive finger, shaking his head and muttering definitively, “Aprés…aprés” [after...after]. We had been waiting anxiously to re-taste this wine since our last visit and it was everything and more than we remembered. But like great chefs and magicians, he coyly refused to reveal the secret of its composition. After the tasting we pushed him again for specific percentages of each varietal in the wine, but he just laughed, raised his bushy eyebrow and said, “Il y plein de Grenache et un peu de Syrah.” [“There’s a good amount of Grenache and a bit of Syrah”]. “Mais c’est pas important, les chiffres. C’est comme la cuisine, on sait le faire ou pas. Eh oui, j’ai oublié, il y un peu de Carignan dedans aussi.” [But it’s not important, the numbers. It’s like cooking, one either knows how to do it or not. Oh yeah, I forgot there’s a little bit of Carignan in it as well.”] With that, he flashed a devilish grin and winked at us disarmingly while we all burst out laughing simultaneously.
As it says on his website: “Here we are free to feel the wine, there are no rules, neither for making it nor for tasting it.”
Clouds were quickly covering the Mediterranean sun and raindrops were beginning to fall. As we left our comrade Luc Lapeyre in Minervois we began to negotiate our “short drive” to Cabardès, a lesser-known appellation nestled between the medieval city of Carcassonne and the Mediterranean Sea. The dual terroir of Cabardès sits at a unique crossroads. On one side you have the arid garrigue of Languedoc and on the other is an upland that mirrors the image of Bordeaux. It is the only appellation that requires the marriage of varietals from two distinct regions: a minimum of 40% Atlantic cépages (Cabernet Sauvignon, Cabernet Franc, Merlot) and a minimum of 40% Mediterranean cépages (Grenache, Syrah, Cinsault).
The rain was sprinkling down on us as we entered the small labyrinthine city of Conques-sur-Orbiel. Our tour at Château Rayssac began with winemaker Jean-Mathieu giving us a tour of his spectacular vineyards. Unfortunately it was quickly cut short by the plummeting rain, so we took refuge in the cuverie [winery]. The first sample we tasted was a free-run rosé produced from Marselan (a red varietal that is a cross between Cabernet Sauvignon and Grenache). It awakened and cleansed our palate for the 2005 Cabardès rouge, proving to be just seductive as the previous vintage. The nose offered a bouquet reminiscent of Banyuls and clung to the palate like a vintage Amarone.
Anyone who has navigated through France knows that being on time takes a back seat to being lost and late. With much reluctance we were forced to bring our lunch with the renowned Remy Pedreno from Roc D’Anglade to a swift close, and continue our journey south. After two hours of missed exits, wrong turns, and dizzying repetitious roundabouts we entered a village near Pinet, miles away from the rocky soils of Cabrerolles in Faugères where the cistus flower reigns.
Even though a few dozen oysters and some crisp Picpoul de Pinet sounded incredibly appealing at that moment, our appointment with this domaine was paramount. We finally arrived at Château La Liquière (where documents dating back to the 1700s validate the long lineage of the Vidal family winemakers). The elegant and sophisticated Sophie and her handsome and enchanting brother François cast their heartfelt smiles upon us, kissed our cheeks politely and then quickly whisked us into their dusty blue Laredo to visit the vineyards. Daylight was beginning to fade but it didn’t hinder the panoramic view of a breathtaking sky laced with hues of cerulean blue, Roman silver and orchid pink. The winds of the Mediterranean kicked up their natural aromatic expressions of garrigue - wafts of eucalyptus, thyme, rosemary and sage - as we made our way back to the winery for a tasting of their ten cuvées, each one distinctive, precise, and extraordinary.
Domaine Ferrer Ribière:
In 1993 the introspective, soft-spoken winegrower Denis Ferrer and Bruno Ribière, the master alchemist of the cellar, joined forces to create this inimitable winery in the arid foothills beneath the dramatic Canigou mountain on the French side of the Catalonian Pyrenees.
It was at Vinisud, the enormous annual international exhibition for Mediterranean wines, that I first met Bruno Ribière of Domaine Ferrer Ribière. We had an appointment with them to taste through their vast lineup of wines. Bruno was instantly captivating with his round, scholarly spectacles and his tousled grey hair and beard. And when he spoke about the wines he sounded more like a poet-philosopher than a winemaker.
Upon my first sip of Domaine Ferrer Ribière’s Empreinte du Temps Carignan (the vines were 128 years old at that time, so they’re almost 145 years old now!), I was transported to another world. Never had I tasted a wine like it in my life. Nor have I since. When vines, especially Carignan, age that long in soil that dry, their roots can go down hundreds of feet seeking water to survive. The result of this stress produces a wine so dense, so rich, so fragrant that it literally smells like the soil from which it grew. This is terroir.
One of my last visits to see Bruno and Denis at their Domaine in Terrats was in 2014 when I was hosting my third Languedoc-Roussillon tour for my company, Wildstar Wine Tours. Bruno was more than happy to have us back as we piled into his tasting room and he stepped behind the bar, like a professor behind a podium about to deliver his intellectual lecture on the esoteric nature of biodynamic winemaking. Which is exactly what he did.
On this occasion, we had the honor to taste a wine that Bruno and Denis had recently concocted. A scholar from one of the local universities had found and translated a medieval manuscript containing a description of a winemaking process used by peasants who worked the vineyards. Peasants were forbidden from drinking the wines made from the grapes they harvested. So they dug open-air trenches and used leftover grapes to create their own wines.
Bruno and Denis, fascinated with this text, decided to recreate this open-air winemaking technique, which Bruno philosophized was a wine for the people. They tested various soils on their vineyards and found one specific area which possessed microscopic fungi particularly suited to fermentation. So they dug their own trench and followed the winemaking details laid out in the medieval manuscript…et voila! Another unforgettable wine from this dynamic duo - an oxidized wine slightly reminiscent of orange wine with hints of aged sherry and almonds. I guess I would have been hanging out with the peasants, because I loved it!
This article is dedicated to the memory of Jean-François “Jef” Izarn of Borie La Vitarèle.
In 2014, the world sadly lost Jef Izarn in a tragic accident on their vineyards. Like myself, anyone who knew Jef was completely heartbroken for his wife Cathy and their family. It’s a testament to their resilience that Cathy and her daughter Camille (who once sat on my lap as a toddler) are now running Borie La Vitarèle themselves and Camille has taken the helm of their family winery as the head vigneron [winemaker]. Many blessings to them both as they continue the legacy of Borie La Vitarèle.