BILL KNOTT
MINERVOIS
You will not be surprised to learn that my annual holiday in France is spent among the vines – but not the manicured vineyards of exalted Bordeaux châteaux, nor the precious little plots of the Côte d’or, nor even the grand cru villages of Champagne. Too much like work.
No, we head for the Minervois, where the Canal du Midi straggles through scruffy vineyards, rosé is €5 a pichet in the village café, and everything shuts on a Monday afternoon. Any tourist attractions in the area – the medieval theme parks of Carcassonne and Minerve, and countless grottes – were ticked off the list long ago.
It would be remiss not to visit a few vignerons. Most farmers around these parts simply grow grapes and sell them to the local co-operative, but more and more have loftier ambitions, and make their own wines: Frantz Vènes of Château Massamier La Mignarde, for instance, who owns 175 acres of vineyards in Minervois La Livinière, the region’s most esteemed appellation.
I dropped by on the off-chance; happily, Frantz was there, and we had a tasting in his atmospheric old cellar, at least half of it occupied by vast oak
foudres (barrels). Blends of grapes are usual in Minervois reds – typically Syrah, Mourvèdre, Grenache and Carignan – and Frantz has some fine examples, not least his prize-winning Domus Maximus, a blend of Syrah and Grenache, but he also makes single-varietal wines from Cinsault and Carignan. Should you find yourself in the area, I recommend a visit: see www.massamier-la-mignarde.com.
Domaine Gayda also has vineyards in La Livinière, but the winery is a few miles southwest of Carcassonne, near the town of Limoux. Gayda is a collaboration between Englishman Tim Ford, Cape Town-born entrepreneur Anthony Record and Loire winemaker Vincent Chansault, and their estate – the smartest in the area – welcomes visitors with open arms (and bottles).
The winery was built in 2004, with an elegant restaurant added in 2006. Tim gave me a cellar tour: lurking among the stainless-steel tanks are six concrete ‘eggs’ (the shape allows wine to flow naturally and continuously during fermentation and ageing), and there are three kvevris on order – earthenware vessels, like big, pointy amphorae, used in Georgia for more than 5,000 years and now being tried by adventurous winemakers everywhere. As Tim observed, ‘You’ve got to give winemakers some kit to play with, or they get bored.’
Gayda sells roughly half of its million annual bottles of wine in France, and exports the rest: in the UK, you can buy their strikingly apricot-scented Viognier (£9.99), a brace of the excellent ‘Flying Solo’ wines (a Grenache/syrah and a Grenache Blanc/viognier, £8.75 each) and a spectacular botrytised Chenin Blanc (£24.95 for 50 cl: it knocks spots off Sauternes at that price) from The Oxford Wine Company (www. oxfordwine.co.uk). Chemin de Moscou and Villa Mon Rêve are two other top-notch wines from Domaine Gayda worth seeking out: www.gaydavineyards.com lists UK stockists.
In the hamlet of St Jean de Minervois, it is Muscat that rules the roost. I had lunch at L’auberge de L’école – a lovely bistro in an old schoolhouse, where a glass of the gently sweet, local wine was de rigueur. After lunch, a stroll to La Distillerie du Petit Grain (www. distillerie-petit-grain.fr), where Laurent Gaspard makes the best poire eau-de-vie I have tasted, as well as stunning apricot eau-de-vie and a lovely gin. Then a drive through the eastern foothills of the Montagne Noire to Saint-chinian, to stock up on more bottles – an excellent ‘Maison des Vins’ on the main square – and home for a glass of something pink. La vie en rosé, you might say.