Through the vineyards with wine expert Wendy Gedney

We spend a day with Wendy in the Corbière hills as she brings the grape's story to life

What have the romans ever done for us, then? Well, there's the vineyards...

It’s the first thing that we learn as we head from Carcassonne along the autoroute to the Mediterranean. Winemaking probably started its journey from Georgia around 8,000 years ago but it was the romans who brought organised wine production to France.

Qualified wine expert, Wendy Gedney has led vineyard tours in France for the last five years or so. She’s collected today’s clients, all Canadians, from their hotels around Carcassonne.

En route, we learn the importance of terroir, that mix of soil, underlying rock, altitude, slope, orientation toward the sun, and microclimate which makes one vineyard different from its neighbour.

The soils here are poor and shallow. That’s good. It limits the growth of the vines and concentrates flavour in the grapes.

Our first vineyard is Château de l’Isle on the coast at Peyriac sur Mer, south of Narbonne. Winemaker Pol Flandroy is waiting at the door. Known and respected by the winemakers that she visits Wendy has the run of the place.

With viticulteur Pol Flandroy (left), Wendy explains winemaking at Château de l'Ille

The nearby Mediterranean brings moist air and a mostly temperate climate.

Then there’s the part that everyone’s been waiting for - the tasting. Pol serves each of his current wines in turn. Like true professionals we don’t drink it but rather swill it around the mouth a before spitting into a bowl. In between each tasting, Pol offers around water to clean the glass before moving to the next wine.

After lunch in nearby Peyriac we move on, deep into the Corbières. This rugged area of limestone gorges is the wreckage from a 60 million year old geological traffic accident.

The limestone was laid down beneath the open Tethys ocean which lay to the south of Europe. Africa would later come blundering into Europe, closing off the open sea to make the Mediterranean basin and ramming Spain into France.

This crumpling of the landscape made the Pyrenees and surrounding hills like the Corbières. The result is a patchwork of spectacular gorges and sun-drenched slopes which produce wines like Fitou. It’s here that Wendy wends her way now.

In 1993 Katie Jones came here from Ashby-de-la-Zouch in the English midlands to become export manager at the local wine cooperative, Mont Tauch. Marketing Fitou to supermarkets across Europe paid the bills but it was inevitable that wine fever would catch up with her in the end.

The charm of the landscape and the people worked its spell and Katie just couldn’t resist the temptation to have a go herself. She looked for small vineyards with traditional grapes and low yields to produce quality wines, preferably with a breathtaking view thrown in. Domaine Jones was born in 2007.

She greets us amongst vines clinging to the slopes of Mont Tauch. We step over a small electric fence which keeps out the wild boar. They’re partial to a grape or two.

Katie Jones recounts the story of Domaine Jones, her Fitou vineyard

Over centuries the vineyards here have been hacked out of the garrigue, a mediterranean speciality of shallow poor soils which support tough and intense little plants, herbs such as wild thyme, rosemary, juniper. Katie explains her mix of old-fashioned no-nonsense farming methods, old vines and a minimum of chemicals.

Descending to the village, we’re obliged to suffer yet another tasting of excellent and distinctive wines. Along with her husband, who has his own vines elsewhere, Katie has converted an old barn into a modern winery.



Her first year’s production, 2009, is almost sold out. What little is left comes away with us. We have a petit gout at 2010 which is still quietly bubbling away. I look forward to revisiting it when it’s in bottles.

Back to Carcassonne through a land of Cathar castles. But that’s another story, for Wendy offers a Cathar tour too!

Wendy Gedney’s Wine Holidays can be contacted at:

Email: wendy@thewinewisecompany.com
UK Mobile: +44 7880 796786
France Mobile: +33 642 333409

Related links :

• http://www.vinenvacances.com/
• http://www.chateaudelille.com
• http://www.domainejones.com/home.html