Languedoc-Roussillon, the sleeping beauty

A handful of producers have struck gold in Languedoc Roussillon. But why, asks Robert Joseph, have so many others struggled?

Photo by Brian Scott on Unsplash
Photo by Brian Scott on Unsplash

Languedoc-Roussillon is a fairytale wine region. It’s the ugly duckling that, after two millennia of being the source of cheap, mostly red wine, has now metamorphosed into an elegant swan that competes with other, more celebrated regions.  

At least, that’s the picture some would like to promote, and it is partly true.

The region has seen a dramatic rise in the price of its wines over the last decade. According to French Agrimer statistics, bulk red and rosé Minervois that was trading at €0.70 per litre in 2008-2009 had more than doubled in price by 2018. At €1.50, it was more expensive than Bordeaux, Bordeaux Supérieur and Beaujolais, and just a shade behind generic Côtes du Rhône. At €2.04 per litre, Côtes du Roussillon Villages had overtaken Côtes du Rhône Villages. Just as importantly, as the volumes of basic Vin de France dropped, the price of IGP had risen from €5.30 a litre to €8.90.

The inflection point

Since the turn of the century, there has been a growth in the number of premium and super-premium wines, and recognition that appellations like Terrasses du Larzac, Pic St Loup and Minervois la Livinière can produce wines that deserve a place on the finest tables. Outside investors from Bordeaux have included both Mouton and Lafite Rothschild as well as the Cazes family, owners of Chateau Lynch-Bages and Bernard Magrez who produces no fewer than 15 wines in the region. Badet-Clement, the dynamic producer has arrived from Burgundy, along with Jean-Charles Boisset and estate owners, Anne Gros and Jean-Paul Tollot. Former rugby star Gérard Bertrand, now a biodynamic wine producer, has won a long list of awards including IWC Red Winemaker of the Year. Betrand’s Clos d’Ora from La Livinière sells at $200 and is the region’s priciest red wine, while his recently launched $180 Clos du Temple is said to be the most expensive rosé in the world.

From this angle there’s much that looks convincingly like a swan, but it is important to keep a sense of proportion. Comparing Minervois bulk prices with those of Bordeaux is to overlook the fact that the latter region is in a state of crisis, with talks of uprooting vines. 

To Adam Dakin, the founder of Wine Objectives, a specialised real estate agent based in Montpellier in the heart of the region, the Languedoc-Roussillon bird is still one that goes quack. “A lot of outsiders who’ve invested have given up and left.” 

This would include people like Louis Max from Burgundy who bought Chateau Caraguilhes, AXA Millesimes, owners of Chateau Pichon Baron who had Domaine des Belles Eaux for a decade or so, and another Bordeaux investor, Chateau Cissac. When land comes up for sale, says Dakin, the main buyers are Grands Chais de France (GCDF), which has a huge arsenal of brands and extensive domestic and international distribution, and Gérard Bertrand. Most other outsiders, Dakin continues, are not as interested.

Robert Eden of Chateau Maris, who started his 45ha estate in 1997 and built it into one of the region’s success stories, is not surprised. “It is not easy to make a profit here – and certainly more difficult than in other regions such as the Rhône and Cru Beaujolais villages,” he says. Parcels of vines are also small and dispersed, which raises the cost of farming them, he points out, along with another problem — the age of the vines. Wine writers often wax lyrical about the region’s old-vine Carignan, but many of these vines are not just venerable, they’re diseased. “After a certain point they don’t yield many grapes – and not enough for the price most consumers are prepared to pay.” 

The Agrimer statistics are revealing. The average yield for the region’s AOPs over the last 11 years is 36.8 hl per ha, compared to 42.25hl in the Côte d’Or, the most prestigious part of Burgundy.

Because of its size, varied landscape and potential for development, Languedoc-Roussillon has often been compared to California and, at the turn of the century, both were around 250,000ha. This was an inflection point however. In the 1970s, the French region had 400,000ha of vines, compared to its California’s meagre 133,000. As the Americans planted, the French uprooted, a process that has continued to the point at which today, the French vineyards cover just 190,000ha.

If California has overtaken Languedoc-Roussillon in size, it has also done so in prestige. AVAs like Napa, Sonoma and Santa Barbara all command price premiums that have more in common with parts of Burgundy and the Médoc than any of the appellations in this part of Southern France.

The problem, Dakin says is that in Languedoc-Roussillon “you’re a little bit in a box” with the appellations – just as you are with generic Bordeaux and Côtes du Rhône – and to get out of that price box can be difficult. 

Surprisingly frankly, for a Scotsman whose livelihood at least partly depends on persuading people to buy vineyards, he admits that none of the appellations has really achieved enough prestige. “Pic St Loup has done well, but that’s partly explained by its proximity to Montpellier, the richest city in the region. And it’s small.” La Livinière, the first Languedoc ‘Cru’, recognised in 1999, and enjoying huge respect among local wine producers and visitors for the quality of Syrah grown at altitudes of 2-300m may be home to the Cazes’s domaine and Bertrand’s Clos d’Ora, but many of its grapes go into generic Minervois and IGP selling in bulk at under a euro and a half a litre.

Where the success of Napa’s super-premium wines helped raise the value of the land. which, in turn helped to justify even more highly-priced bottles, Languedoc real estate remains very affordable. As Dakin says, Corbières might cost €12,000 ($14,250) per hectare; Minervois a little more, at 15,000 ($17,800) while Cru La Livinière vineyards, some of the best in the region are on offer at just €18,000 ($21,360)  – less than a fifth of the very cheapest vineyard in Napa. “If you go up into the High Corbières,” Dakin says, or to what Jancis Robinson has called the “exciting” upper Agly Valley near Perpignan, “you could pick up land with 100 year-old vines for as little as €8,000 to €10,000 a hectare.”

The lost opportunity 

Languedoc-Roussillon might in other circumstances have been Sleeping Beauty, awakened by a kiss from a handsome prince. In 1998 a Prince arrived, in the shape of a wealthy foreigner, and began to discuss the purchase of land close to the village of Aniane. The plan was to invest €30m on vineyards and a winery that would produce 20,000 cases of wine to retail at $60 a bottle, a then almost unheard-of price in the region. Just one year earlier, when he launched his first wines, Robert Eden had thought $25 ambitious.

The outsider in question was an American called Robert Mondavi who, as anyone who saw Jonathan Nossiter’s documentary Mondovino will remember, was chased out of the region by a movement championed by a local producer called Aimé Guibert. A former glove-manufacturer-turned brilliant, mercurial winemaker, Guibert had created Mas de Daumas Gassac and used an eccentric range of grapes to produce the most expensive vin de table on the planet. He was known as the first organic producer in the region and a stalwart foe of New World wines which he termed – without exception – as ‘industrial’.

Less well-known is the fact that he discussed the sale of at least part of his business both to the Australian giant Southcorp and Mondavi. Negotiations broke down on both occasions, and it was only after he stopped talking to the American that the campaign against Mondavi’s purchase of a nearby plot of land began.

Dakin, who was involved with the deal, recalls that not only did its collapse lead to the loss of that investment. It also deterred other Americans who were planning to follow in Mondavi’s footsteps, and slowed the development of the kind of dynamic, profitable wine tourism that he had helped to invent. David Pearson, who represented Mondavi, went on to manage Opus One which sells for $400 per bottle, an unimaginable figure in Languedoc-Roussillon.

Over the following two decades there have been no other princes with the combination of enthusiasm, ambition and cash as Mondavi. Many wine drinkers will, like Nossiter, celebrate this. They will be happy that Languedoc-Roussillon remains the home of delicious affordable wines rather than the $100-$300 big ‘Napa Cabs’ with which California is associated. On the other hand, they conveniently overlook the foundations on which those modestly-priced French wines are built. Between 2008 and 2018, the number of individuals and companies completing obligatory Declarations de Récolte harvest reports fell from 27,500 to 19,300. This is admittedly a smaller fall than in many other French regions, but it represents 8,000 families and family enterprises that are no longer growing grapes or making wine.

The successes

Ironically, for those who focus their attention on the high profile AOP estates, both Eden and Dakin agree that, in financial terms, many of the most successful grape growers in the region today are the ones focusing on IGP/Vins de Pays. Because they are free to choose and irrigate the grape varieties they want to farm, and subject to far more relaxed limits on yields, producers who sell their grapes to businesses like GCDF or Gerard Bertrand, or do their own vinification and distribution, can make money.

Among the success stories, that produce both IGP and AOP is Chateau d’Aussières in Corbières, owned by DBR Lafite. It produces 10,000 cases of Corbières which sells for around €39, and 30,000 of the Blason d’Aussières at around half that price. The remainder of the two million bottle production is sold as IGP, either under private label or under the estate brand at €11.

Olivier Richaud, who took over the reins of the 167ha estate in January after six years of overseeing the launch of the Lafite Long Dai operation in China, explains that the vision extends beyond winemaking. “It’s more environmental. There are 15ha of olive trees and we’re in a zone that has special protection for birds. And, as a new departure for DBR, we’re developing a wine tourism and direct-sales centre.” Another change that Richaud is introducing is a greater focus on local sales. “It’s a paradox, but over 90% of our production is exported, particularly to Asia. Nobody knows our wines in Narbonne.” The French distributor Richaud inherited made it impossible for retailers and sommeliers nearby to buy the wine, so one of his priorities is to integrate the domaine more into the region. 

The focus on the environment also includes a move towards organic production, though there are no plans yet to follow Gerard Bertrand’s example of farming all of his 600ha biodynamically. Unusually for the region, d’Ausières has many north-facing vineyards whose cooler temperatures and six-week-long harvest make for more elegant wines. But, even with that quality and the prestige and distribution resources of the Lafite operation, Richaud acknowledges the price constraints described by Dakin and Eden. “It may be easier to farm organically here than in Bordeaux,” he says, “but it’s difficult to recuperate the extra costs in the price of the wine.” He wonders about the profitability of the organic wines on offer from some other larger producers. “I think they are swallowing their margins.”

It’s all in the pricing

As for the pricing constraints of Languedoc appellations, Richaud notes that when Jancis Robinson, who has a holiday home in the region, did a tasting of its wines, several of the most highly rated were Vins de France. “I have good friends who very successfully produce a white Vin de France in the Médoc. They have a chateau brand and distribution. The difficulty here however – for either a super-premium Vin de France wine or one within an appellation lies in building its reputation. I think it needs to be a collective action, to get the critical mass.”

Over the last half century, small numbers of producers in regions like Tuscany, Priorat and Napa have all developed stronger super-premium sectors than Languedoc Roussillon. Even China, where Long Dai sells for $400 a bottle has managed it, but France’s biggest area of vineyard can make world beating wines but it seems psychologically unable to move out of the ‘good value’ sector. 

Richaud agrees. “The potential is here. We need several more Gerard Bertrands and several more Domaines d’Aussières in the region. It would help the visibility. We shouldn’t be talking about competition; what matters is being seen and having the right wines to offer.” 

Perhaps the final word should go to Adam Dakin. “I’ve been in the region since 1994 and doing what I do now since 1999, and all that time, I’ve been saying this is Eldorado, the New World of the Old World, with carte blanche to do whatever you want, to make exceptional wines without being restricted – all of the lines you hear over and over again.” He says that while there are some very successful producers, and the standards have been raised substantially, “we can’t seem to shift off the ‘gros rouge’ image of the past. So you’re tied to that price box – which is a tough call.” 

Sleeping Beauty is not yet fully awake. 

Robert Joseph

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