From Burgundy to Languedoc: Anne Gros in Minervois

An exclusive report, with tasting notes, on the Languedoc-Roussillon wine project of Anne Gros and Jean-Paul Tollot.

Tasting Gros-Tollot wines

Limestone-clay and marl soils at an elevation well above 200 metres – a familiar combination for wine-growers from the esteemed terroirs of Burgundy.

But we’re down in Languedoc – a long way, in all senses, from the home of two – Anne Gros of the Vosne-Romanée dynasty and her partner (in both senses) Jean-Paul Tollot of the Chorey-Lès-Beaune family – who, a decade ago, took on a secluded estate in the north-eastern reaches of the Minervois appellation.

About 35km from the Mediterranean coast, on the edge of the Languedoc Regional Nature Park, the small hamlet of Cazelles is a place where differences come together.

Its population of 30 is split evenly on either side of the road; and on one side the vineyards are more stony, while the other side has a more north-easterly exposure and more sandy/marl soils.

When the wind blows, it brings the dry air from the Black Mountain to north/northwest. But here it meets the moist, warming influence of the sea to the south – and it’s the winner of this tussle that decides the character of the wines in each vintage.

‘It’s tough conditions, not a good place for a holiday,’ says Anne Gros. Ironic, because it was right at the end of a month-long vineyard-hunting tour from east to west through the south of France that they came across this place in 2006.

And as they began to realise they had found what they were looking for, the recognition also dawned that they had been very close to it before, on a camper van holiday with their three children some years before.

‘In the end, it didn’t feel like we had been waiting to find the right place, but that the vineyards had been waiting for us.’

There’s no denial from Anne when asked if her friends back in verdant Burgundy think they are completely mad. ‘You come to a time in your life – when I turned 40 – when you have to decide if you want to carry on doing everything as you always have, or if you want a new challenge. We weren’t fed up with Pinot Noir – you never can be – but I wanted to experiment with some new grapes.’

They ‘fell in love’ with the old vine Carignan at Cazelles: ‘It is an excellent translator of the soil,’ she says. That it can ripen completely but still retain high acidity and sugar does make it a completely different prospect, while the other traditional Minervois grapes grown on the 16ha estate all also bring their own ‘challenges’.

All grapes destemmed, with no carbonic maceration, wines are vinified plot by plot – another contrast to local tradition. ‘We are very simple,’ Anne says, simply.

Not organic – ‘I don’t like to follow the standard line’ – but worked according to sustainable lutte raisonée methods, picking is all done by hand, with readiness gauged by tasting the grapes, skins and pips.

They have 110 barrels, about one-third new, renewed on a three-yearly cycle. ‘In Languedoc they have a different idea of oak – we don’t have the same language,’ she admits. ‘In Burgundy you don’t “add wood”, you “raise” a wine in the barrel, but only if you think it is good enough.’

The wines

The common theme across all the wines tasted was a freshness and brightness of character – and a very clear sense that these are wines of the south of France. Not the chunky, rustic reds one might expect of the Minervois region tradition, perhaps, but the wines all proudly displayed, to a greater or lesser degree, a distinctively mineral/earthy core and an array of herbal accompaniment.

And Pinot Noir? Well, watch this space – some vines have been planted, though we may have to wait a year or two to see any results. If the wines are good enough.

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