Andrew Jefford: 'We've got a wine revolution on our hands'

Look up: we’ve got a revolution on our hands. The old order’s being swept away. No more steady state: for the first time in human history, significant decade-on-decade change is permanent, structural and accelerating.

Climate is now a rocket. Wine-growers (whose plants and products measure its effects with great exactitude) sit in the cockpit, seatbelts fastened. They’ll need them.

Hotter, colder, wetter, drier, windier, spikier, more violent: that’s tomorrow. Growers need to be alert, responsive, flexible – to retreat where necessary, but also to seize new chances and opportunities when they present.

Here’s an example of chance seized. It’s a sparsely populated, barely planted corner of the high Languedoc, way beyond the reach of any existing appellation. It had no wine distinction in the past – yet now it’s producing some of France’s most exciting new whites.

Cédric Guy of Domaine de Bon Augure is prime mover in this story. Faugères born and bred, he worked from 1995 with the Bouchard family at Abbaye Sylva Plana. From 10ha, Sylva Plana (certified organic since 2008) expanded to 54ha, a hotel and a restaurant. But Cédric had a dream: to make white wine, which he felt was ‘impossible’ in the heat of Faugères.

He searched – and found mountain vineyards (450m-600m) 40 minutes north, in the Monts d’Avène sector of the IGP Haute Vallée de l’Orb, planted with Chardonnay – to which he added Petit Manseng, Petite Arvine and other varieties. ‘Initially, I was happy if the must got to 11% or 11.5%. Wines with high levels of acidity weren’t much in demand 20 years ago, so I made sparkling wines.’

The rocket, though, had lifted off. Cédric sold his share of Sylva Plana in 2013 when his mountain- vineyard alcohols moved past 12% towards 13%; he switched to still wines.

‘It’s not politically correct to say it and I don’t want the planet to suffer, but the climate is now extremely favourable to producing great white wines here. We have lots of rain; we can preserve acidity; we have enough juice so the musts aren’t too concentrated.’

It was early April when I visited; Bourgogne had been fighting late-March frosts. ‘When I saw pictures of their vines,’ said Cédric, ‘I could see leaves. We still have sleeping buds. We have time lag that works at both ends of the season.’

I’m not a fan of ‘tight’, high-acid, low-alcohol wines... when they’re the result of early picking, of anxiety and adjustment, of peer-group pressure and media proselytising. The wines of Bon Augure, from vines immaculately tended on often steep, limestone breccia soils just north of the village of Joncels, aren’t like that. Their acidities are astonishing: tingling, zesty, energetic, dancing with flavour in their arms; you know that this acidity will settle, fill, convince and satisfy with time in the bottle.

Nothing is raw or uncovered here: there’s sap, sinew and wealth of flavour behind, together with the quiet aromatic allusions that recall natural landscapes.

Bon Augure produces four principal wines: a pure-Chardonnay ‘en terre étrangère’; the sculpted Chardonnay-Petit Manseng blend ‘Joncs-cella’; a mouthwatering and vivacious, amber-tinted skin-contact wine based on trois gris (Pinot Gris, Sauvignon Gris, Grenache Gris) called ‘Aux innocents les mains pleines’; and the dense, finely crafted DSLS Petite Arvine.

All are world- class. Note the varietal width: another good sign. There’s convincing Pinot and Cornalin, too.

Cédric isn’t alone. A local charity called Les Compagnons du Sens, led by a charismatic retired monk called Frère Marie-Pâques, has been helping younger growers set up in the Haute Vallée de l’Orb. Domaines to look out for include Angel Montgros, Bòria Bissio, Gravezon, Jouvet, Mas des Mesures, Peira Clara and Saint Antonin.

Monts d’Avène will appear on labels of IGP Haute Vallée de l’Orb from vintage 2025 for wines made from limestone-grown, barrel-fermented Chardonnay; it may eventually win an AP. If everything hasn’t changed by then.

In my glass this month

Bon Augure’s 2024 ‘en terre étrangère’ (pure Chardonnay from the domaine’s highest vineyards, part-barrel fermented in old oak, with full malolactic) is inspiring, assured wine.

Its spring- garden freshness suggests both plants and flowers; it’s complete on the tongue. You can’t escape the often-overused descriptors salt and stone here, once the acrobatic acidity has come down off its high trapeze and the applause is subsiding. Taste it and believe. (Via UK importer Saison Wines)

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