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Discover the secrets of the Minervois with Wendy Gedney

This time, Wendy explores the much underestimated Minervois where wines now range all the way to excellent

What makes a wine? Well, mostly its terroir. This one word expresses a range of factors defined by the land where the vines grow - altitude, soil, geology, climate, drainage.

Six visitors join this tour of one of French wine's greatest secrets. This region between Carcassonne and the Mediterranean was renowned for its plonk but the locals been sneakily improving it.

Years of quiet hard work and a dash of new-world methods have transformed the label. These days the Minervois can produce wines which rank with the best. Not everyone knows that yet.

We start at the Château de Minervois where Emmanuel Gardey de Soos has relentlessly pursued the quality which has won him countless awards. These lowland wines are strong, due to the warm climate.

Lesson one is all about tasting. Very soon everyone's doing a Jancis Robinson, checking the nose, the colour, swirling wine knowledgeably round the glass. Then it's onto swirling around the mouth.

Not everyone remembers to spit the wine rather than drink it. Somehow it seems unnatural to junk a perfectly good vintage.

20110629A Wendy Gedney explains tasting in Chateau de RieuxLesson one - tasting

Then it's off to the nearby hills, the Montagne Noire, to be exact.

Interesting facts tumble thick and fast. These sloping vineyards are a few hundred metres higher than those on the Minervois plain. It's colder at night making for wines which are slightly more acid.

The poor soils and dry climate mean that vines have to search hard for their water, sending roots hundreds of metres. This makes for stronger tasting wines with more character. The limestone reflects the light and heat back into the vines aiding the grapes' development. At night, the hot stones keep the vines warm.

20110629B Wendy Gedney explains terroir in the MinervoisWendy Gedney explains the idea of terroir in the Minervois - the limestone aids grape development

No vineyard tour would be complete without lunch and this one's in a small hamlet, Fauzan. Rather than a high profile tourist restaurant, we've come to the real thing. The Chabbert family have been offering tasty home cooking for four decades.

Years of family tradition have prepared Jocelyne Chabbert and her brother Gerard for feeding small regiments of vineyard workers. So let's start with the Salade de Fantasie, an explosion of colour on a plate.

Then there's Poularde au Minervois - a local version of Coq au Vin, Confit de Canard, Gigot d'Agneau...just the thing for people who've been outside amongst the vines all day, which we have.

20110629C Lunch at Restaurant Chabbert near OlonzacThere's no shortage of colour with Salade de fantasie

On to Minerve, where medieval rent-a-thug, Simon de Montford, burnt 180 Cathars in 1210. These Christian purists had split from the Catholic Church which they saw as corrupt. The pope sent Simon the Terminator to hunt down the renegades, some of whom took refuge behind Minerve's walls.

20110629D Minerve Cathar Fortress in the MinervoisMinerve, the fortified village which gives its name to the Minervois

The papal troops used catapults to bombard the village with dead animals so that some fell in the well, poisoning the water and forcing the Cathars to surrender. Those who recanted their faith were allowed to leave, the hardliners left behind burned at the stake.

Few vineyards bottle their own wine. Most call in the bottling wagon when the wine is ready. Here at Minerve we stumbled upon one bottling plant on wheels as it emptied the cave at Domaine Cavaillès.

Empty bottles enter at the front while wine unceremoniously arrives by hose from the cave. In the space of a few metres the wine is bottled, corked, labelled and packed into cases.

20110629E Bottling truck20110629F Bottling truckThe empty bottles arrive here, then meet the wine there before heading...

20110629G Bottling truck20110629H Bottling truck...for the case and it's en-route to a supermarket or wine merchant near you

And how did the wine finds its way to the truck? Well, sharp-eyed readers will have noted the hose coming direct from the cave.

The trouble with France - there's so much wine and so little time and we were a group with a mission.

The next stop was Clos de Gravillas. Nicole and John Bojanowski came to Saint John de Minervois in 1999 with one idea - to make rich-tasting wines which would accompany Mediterranean cuisine.

The've succeeded admirably and the proof is in their Muscat. The grapes are harvested by hand and lovingly carried in small baskets to avoid crushing them. Crushed grapes mean that fermentation starts in the open air. Contamination follows close behind.

This herby wine with a cascade of flavours finished the day with a flourish.

20110629H Nicole Bojanowski pours wine at Clos du GravillasNicole Bojanowski serves a surprisingly complex Muscat from her organic vineyard

There's a link to Wendy Gedney's wine tour page below this article. We've also included a selection of Pure France properties in and around the Minervois


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