My Life in Languedoc, a Memoir in Chapters.

#2 - The Wizard of Félines and Other Minervois Folk

For five years, 2009 to 2014, I split my time between England and France. The winter months were spent in England teaching wine studies at my own wine school as well as at a College in Birmingham. Summers were spent in France running wine tours. I always returned to Languedoc on April 1st. I liked the idea of arriving on April Fool’s Day, it was my way of sticking two fingers up at fate, saying OK I know how foolish I am but watch me go…

The second year I decided to live in a busier Minervois village, Caunes-Minervois. It’s a village with a long history going back at least a thousand years and from what I could gather it seemed to be the Minervois’s epicentre. The population was and still is made up of people from several countries including the USA, Canada, South Africa, Australia, New Zealand, Estonia, Holland and of course Britain. Even so, we immigrants are far outnumbered by locals.

I’d already made a few friends in that village and was looking forward to getting to know more, however meeting wine makers was top of the list. I needed to expand the number of wine domains I could include in my tours. I didn’t expect this to be difficult, after all Languedoc is the largest vineyard in France with over 5000 wineries.

People are often surprised with how I selected the wineries I worked with. I did it by instinct. I would drive around looking at the shape of the land, the parcels of vines, how they’re tended – I didn’t want pristine rows, I wanted weeds..! Scruffy vineyards are a clue to how the land is being farmed, often indicating its done organically. I’ve found farmers who shun chemicals are usually passionate about wine making and those were the sort of people I wanted my clients to meet.

This is how I met a winemaking father and his two sons in the village of Félines-Minervois. I’d passed by their vineyards, most of which are high up in the hills sitting in stunning scenery. They were small parcels rather than huge blocks of vines but what most delighted me was seeing them being ploughed by horse. I knew instantly this was a place I had to visit. I parked up in their yard, strolled into their tasting room and was greeted by the youngest son who had a gleaming smile and luckily for me spoke excellent English. I asked to taste the wines and as is usual we began with the entry level. It was so good that my mouth watered at the prospect of tasting the whole range, especially the top wine. When I did, it astonished me. The quality was world class and I said as much. The son beamed broadly then proudly told me his family’s story.

They had lived for generation in the village of Félines-Minervois and originally they’d been sheep farmers. In the 1920’s the village, along with the majority in Languedoc, built a cave co-operative and wine making families stopped making their own wine and took their grapes along with everyone else’s to the co-op. The aim was to make enough quantity so that the co-op could compete with wine merchants who, up until then had dominated the market. This is one of the ways Languedoc became known as a bulk wine producer for the masses.

Back in those days country folk didn’t trust banks. If they made any money, they would hide it under the mattress but with the advent of cave co-ops many people saw a way of making interest on their savings. They’d buy a parcel of land, plant vines and the whole family would tend it. The grapes they harvested would be taken to the co-op and would bring them in a few hundred francs. That’s what this young man’s family did, planting vines where the sheep had once grazed. When the grandfather died the young man’s father took over and continued in the same way. That is until he had an accident and broke his back and although he recovered, he was not able to work his old job. He needed to find another way to make his living.

Options were few in rural France but that turned out to do him a favour. It made him look closer to home at a time when wine making was becoming fashionable. He asked himself could he become a wine maker? It would mean turning his back on the village co-op, but he didn’t think he had a choice, he had two boys to raise. So that year instead of selling his grapes to the co-op he became the first person in his family to make wine. It would also be the first time wine had been made purely using only their grapes. He had no idea what his vineyards were capable of producing until he tasted his first wine and that was when he knew his land was a jewel in his hands.

Photo by Martin Fennema on Unsplash

Over the next few years he worked hard, practising the art of wine making. As well as the unique terroir he was farming, he seemed to have an inbuilt talent. Every year the wine got better and better and locally he became known for making some of the best wine in the region. He was pleased with the local reviews but felt he needed a higher endorsement to acknowledge the quality so he decided to enter his top wine into one of the most prestigious wine competitions in France. It was an ambitious step. Not only would his wine be up against some of the most celebrated wines in France but also the competition was to find the finest of them all.

Back then Languedoc wines held no regard in the world of wine so his chances of winning were slight to say the least, however the wines would be judged blind and he hoped that as the judges didn’t know it was a Languedoc wine they could not be prejudiced.

After the tasting the panel of experts ranked the wines in order of quality and only then were the names and provenance revealed to them. If the father was shocked when his wine won 1^st place, the judges were appalled. They couldn’t believe it was a Midi wine and called for a re-trial. Fresh bottles were opened and the tasting was done again and guess what? The fathers wine won. The judges were astonished. One of them said, ‘what magic is this?’ And so it was that from that day forward the father was dubbed ‘The Wizard of Félines.’

I loved the story as well as the wines and as the tour season ramped up, I brought customers to visit this winery at least once a week. I realised that my tours were all the richer for stories like this so sought out other wineries with interesting anecdotes to share.

There was Emmanuel who I met in the car park of the village supermarket. His family had once been prosperous wine merchants. He’d been born in the hulking 8^th century château that dominates the village. But times change and by the time Emmanuel took over there wasn’t much money or business left. He sold up and went to Paris to make a life there but when he married he recalled his carefree childhood growing up in a sleepy Minervois village. He wanted his children to have the same experience so decided to return and learn how to be a wine maker. Although he’d long since sold the château he still owned the old winery next door. It was too large for what he planned to do so he restored only part of it leaving the rest as it had been when it was built. The first time I saw it I felt as though I was stepping back in time. It is the perfect example of an early 1900’s winery with its ancient wooden foudre (large wooden vats) and ‘modern’ concrete cuves.

His winery became one of my regular visits but because he was a one-man band and often too busy to greet us himself, he would leave the key under the mat for me..!

Gradually I found more Minervois wineries, each with an interesting story to tell. I had also begun to explore other parts of Languedoc, finding wineries in the Corbières and Limoux with owners that also had interesting tales of how it all began for them. With friends like these my business was flourishing with new customers as well as previous ones returning year on year.

My experience as a tour guide was growing and I was learning more about growing and making wine which in turn made me a better wine teacher. I was also combining all my talents; people skills, driving, love of France and its food and of course my now even deeper wine knowledge. I was always pleased to go back to England to see my family and friends, but it was in Languedoc where I felt I was doing my life’s work. I toyed with the idea of leaving England all together to make a new life in France but in order to afford it I would need my business to work harder. On the drive back to England that October I decided I would return for the 2011 season. I’d see how that went before doing anything rash and looked forward to the next April Fool’s Day when I’d return to beautiful Languedoc.