Vine Guardians: A new generation of winemakers in the Languedoc

A new generation of winemakers has risen to the challenge posed by competition from New World wines; things don’t always go to plan, but in Languedoc the Vine Guardians have provided a corker of a solution, says Wendy Gedney…

Back in 2007, I was working as a wine teacher in the UK, but yearned to be in France. Due to a series of lucky breaks, I was given the opportunity to work at a winery in Languedoc for a few weeks and this piece of good fortune introduced me to this wonderful part of southern France. I fell hopelessly in love with it and vowed to find a way to make it my home. The dream came true when I started a vineyard tour business in 2009.

For centuries Languedoc- Roussillon had been the bulk producer of rustic and often poorly made wine destined to quench the nation’s thirst in the days when water was unsafe to drink. Fortunes were won and just as quickly lost as the region swung between boom times and the doldrums over the years. Stuck in their old ways of winemaking – quantity over quality – it wasn’t until the 1980s that things slowly began to change. This was the time when the New World ‘varietal wines’ started to appear on European shelves, instantly making an impact.

Until then, we’d been used to buying wines labelled by provenance rather than selecting our wines by grape variety. You bought a Chablis not a Chardonnay, a Bordeaux not a Cabernet Sauvignon, but overnight the ‘new kids on the block’ had found a way of making wine more accessible. This was the kiss that woke the sleeping princess.

The story of Languedoc’s rise to fortune this time round is a tale about the people who came here. Like the 1989 film Field of Dreams (‘If you build it, they will come’), the creation of the Vins du Pays designation was one of the reasons talented winemakers came here, bringing change with them. Before France created this category, its wines were sold under the AOC label or as ordinary Vins de Table, but the competition from the New World was forcing France to respond. People wanted simple labels that carried the name of the grape variety, and France found the answer by introducing the Vins de Pays designation. Languedoc- Roussillon embraced this approach, making the first Vins du Pays d’Oc in 1987.

Whereas AOC rules restrict and protect name and style, Vins du Pays is much more flexible, which allows for innovation. The release of this label coincided with a swell of people all over the world wanting to make their own wine. Most were looking for a place where winemaking rules didn’t inhibit their vision, where the land was affordable, and because organic farming was taking off in a big way back then, they also sought a warm dry climate.

For many people Languedoc was that place, so following their dream and bringing passion with them, they bought up small parcels of land and resurrected old vines that had fallen out of favour such as Carignan. Many of them also planted new vines of almost every French grape variety you can think of. Some made simple, ‘cheap-and-cheerful quaffers’ appealing to the price sensitive and those who like the familiar name of an international grape variety. Others set to work nurturing the traditional Languedoc varieties, coaxing incredibly good wines from them.

The growing influx of foreign winemakers was one of the reason the younger generation became aware of what was happening and realised they too could make quality wine. They didn’t have to follow in the footsteps of their forebears. Instead, they headed to college attaining not only qualifications but exciting ideas. They returned to the family land with new ways of doing things, reducing yields, lowering quantities and rather than sending grapes to cooperatives, they built wineries to make wines that expressed the Mediterranean climate and culture. Much of it was organic or even biodynamic and often made by someone whose family had never made wine before.

One of the first people I met when I arrived in Languedoc was Emmanuel Puy, part of the new generation of Languedoc winemakers that was bucking the trend. I was instantly impressed by the quality of his wine, but also by the way this young man was so clearly wedded to his land. We struck up a great working relationship and for a few years I regularly took clients to visit his winery. People loved tasting his expressive wines and meeting this humble and talented winemaker who was doing everything organically.

In the 1930s, his grandfather had left Spain and headed to the Languedoc village of Roubia, where he settled. He bought a patch of land known as Les Matelles on which he planted the grape variety Carignan. The harvests were all sent to the local cooperative winery, and when it was his son’s time to look after the vines, Emmanuel’s father did the same thing.

When the gauntlet was passed to Emmanuel, he chose a different route taking himself off to university where he qualified with a BTSA in Viticulture Oenologie. In his early 20s, he became the first in his family to make wine. If all was fair in love and war, his wines would have found their way to some of the best restaurants and wine merchants in France and beyond. But there is a saying among the winemakers around here, ‘its easier to make wine than to sell it’, and by that they mean how do you stand out from the crowd.

Languedoc alone has more than 5,000 wine domaines all competing for the same market and sadly it was only a few years before Emmanuel was forced to stop winemaking and that meant I could no longer take my tours to his winery.

So, for a few years, we lost touch. Then in 2020 I was delighted to hear he was back in the winemaking business. I looked forward to tasting his latest cuvées, but hadn’t got round to seeing him when the following spring I heard his vineyards had been badly hit by frost. No matter what crop you’re farming, you’re at the mercy of the weather. In the south of France our main problem is the lack of water as rainfall is low, whereas in places such as the Loire Valley they fear frost during springtime, something that rarely affects Languedoc.

March 2021 had started off warmer than usual, encouraging the vines to wake from winter dormancy, shooting their tender buds earlier than they would normally. Therefore, when the frost struck, it devastated the new growth destroying that year’s harvest.

I wanted to help but what on earth could I do? I drove over to see him and discovered that the damage was so bad he’d lost 75% of that year’s harvest. Worse still, the frost would also reduce next year’s crop. So, the burning question was how was he going to get through, feed his kids and keep his head above water?

We chatted and I discovered that since I’d last seen him, he’d made a living growing grapes and selling them to one of the big wine merchants who made wine for supermarkets. This year he’d have nothing to sell and, therefore, no income. The previous year, he’d kept back just 5% of his best grapes to make his own wine again. I wondered, if he could sell it at full market value, would that help him? Gradually a rescue plan formed in my head and by the time I left we’d pretty much formulated the Vine Guardians.

There are many vine adoption schemes, where people rent a row of vines in return for a case of wine, but we wanted the Vine Guardians programme to go further. We were sure people would get joy from being more involved in a vineyard-and we were proved right. The programme was an instant success; many people wanted to support Emmanuel and his wife, Leanne. They were attracted by the chance of a close connection to a beautiful organic Minervois vineyard and loved seeing their names at the end of a row of the vines planted by his grandfather all those years ago in the Les Matelles vineyard. We also created a vine trail that winds its way through vines and garrigue to a little cabane in an olive grove, where a shady picnic spot can be enjoyed by Guardians all year round. We host many events here, such as the winter-pruning workshops, spring bud-break walk and the annual dinner with music in the vineyard. But the pièce de résistance is the harvest picnic every September, which has become a firm favourite.

For me, it felt good to give something back to a man who’d helped me get started all those years ago, and to be part of a winemaking community in a region that gave me a wonderful new life. Emmanuel and Leanne are now in sole charge of the Vine Guardians programme and I am sure it will continue to go from strength to strength.

To learn more about the Vine Guardians programme, get in touch with Emmanuel and Leanne at vignoble-puy.com

To book a vineyard tour, visit vinenvacances.com

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