Mas de Daumas Gassac is a famous wine for many reasons: because it competes with the Grand Crus Classés in Bordeaux, because its owner, Aimé Guibert rejected the French wine regulations to produce something different in the Herault region with Cabernet Sauvignon as the main grape variety when Shiraz Grenache or Carignan were the rule, and of course because Aimé Guibert is a hero in the now famous Mondovino movie defending the quality of his Terroir. I had the pleasure to meet his son Samuel Guibert who is the winemaker along with his two brothers and father at Daumas Gassac. Samuel had the kindness to welcome me at Mas de Daumas Gassac in Aniane just before Easter. In this interview Samuel tells us all about Daumas Gassac as a special wine because of the quality of its Terroir, and he gave me his view on the current world of wine in a passionate interview. Olivier Bourseau: Thank you very much for having us at Domaine de Daumas Gassac. Your wines are prestigious. Your father, a “Parisien” (someone from Paris) bought the Mas of Daumas Gassac without the intention to actually make wine in the first place at all. It is believed that the first vines were then planted in 1974 following the visit from Henri Enjalbert, an oenologist who understood the great quality of your “Terroir” (soil, climate, topography). The first vintage was dated 1978 and was made with the counselling of Emile Peynaud, the famous oenologist. How was that time for your father and did he convert into a winemaker very quickly? Samuel Guibert: A few adjustments to begin with: the first one is my father is not coming from Paris! He would strangle you if he had heard this! He is from the elected breed as he likes to say: the “Averonais” (from the Averon region). My mother is from Montpellier or the Languedoc. My father used to be a “megicier”, or tanner as it had been the case in the family for 8 or 9 generations. My parents got married at the end of the 60’s, or early 70’s and it is by then that they were looking to buy a house to escape from the flat they lived in in Montpellier. They went to the hinterland and found what you could find by then. That was an old “Mas” which means farm in the south of France: the Mas from Daumas Gassac. Daumas is the name of the farmers my parents bought the Mas from and who had been farmers for 7 or 8 generations here. Gassac is the name of the river flowing in the middle of the property. They discovered the Mas with quite a few disused lands. The Gassac were 80 years old of age and still working in erstwhile style, which meant Jean Gassac would get up every morning at 4 o’clock and would work behind his horse, with no machines, nor chemicals! This is quite important as we inherited from a pesticides and chemicals-free land. When we say that we are “natural” or without chemicals or pesticides, we are and it’s not recent! So my parents fell in love with this Mas, and with the house before everything else. It is a little later that they thought they could plant something using the available land but it was wheat, asparagus or Olive trees they were thinking about, not vines! Wine made in the Languedoc region was of below average quality, and difficult to sell especially by that time. The visit from someone who was not an oenologist was enough to kick off the wine project: Henry Enjalbert was a famous geographer and geologist, and head of the geology department at the Bordeaux University. He was a friend of my father from Averon. So Henry Enjalbert came one day and as he was wandering through the property, he saw a section of the soil which made the renown of Daumas Gassac which is a soil made of red glacial dust, very different from the white “luthecian” limestone you can find widespread in this region. This unique soil we have is especially suitable for non local grape varieties such as cabernet sauvignon, pinot noir, nebbiolo, dolcetto, cabernet franc, tannat, petit verdot. With regards to white grape varieties, viognier from Rhone, petit-manseng from Jurancon, chenin blanc from the loire or chardonnay from Burgundy are also giving very good results here and are not local grape varieties either. This does explain why we never got the “AOC” (the highest level in the French wine classification), we were just “Vin de table” (the lowest level within the wine ranking in France, only because they were using non-local grape varieties) and we are now “Vin de Pays” (one level lower than the “AOC” in the classification). And we are very proud of it! So to sum it up rather quickly, Henry Enjalbert told my parents : “you have a unique terroir, which I have only seen in some parts of Burgundy and particularly in the Côte d’Or. You can make a “grand cru” with this terroir in my opinion.” Picture below: Soil at Daumas Gassac A Grand Cru didn’t mean a good wine only from the man who was the expert about soils and who had written books about “ampelographie” (science of the vine and grapes varieties), and also about the soils of Château Latour and Château Margaux,. That meant a wine which would make people dream all around the world. But Mr Enjalbert also told my parents that it could take 20 or 100 years to succeed. Thank god it didn’t take this much since the first harvest happened in 1978 (first vines planted in 1974) which was completely processed and made by Emile Peynaud, the famous oenologist professor. Mr Peynaud and Enjalbert are now both dead unfortunately. The professor Enjalbert is the mentor of viticulture and the Daumas Gassac vineyard. The professor Peynaud is the godfather of vinification or winemaking here. Mr Peynaud agreed to participate in the Daumas Gassac adventure without ever being under a contract or any financial agreement with my parents. He believed in this story. He used to say: “Look, maybe I can be involved in the birth of a Grand Cru”. He had been counselling many great wine in Bordeaux already but he had not participated in the birth of a Grand Cru. The words Grand Cru (which means a great quality vineyard) were first given to Daumas Gassac by the English, at the beginning of the 1980’s since a “Vin de Pays” in France from the Herault region sounded like something to shun for the French wine drinkers. The acknowledgement came later in France. Olivier Bourseau: What is your background in wine and what are your tasks at the Mas? Samuel Guibert: It is a family-run business. We try to keep this family oriented side of the business making a great wine but with the handcraft style, which means we reject chemicals, and too much modern methods. That does not mean to say we are stuck in the past! We were the first to use the inoxidizable steel tanks in the Languedoc region. We were the first to have an internet website. Being a traditionalist doesn’t mean we are not looking ahead. My 2 brothers and I have succeeded to my parents even though our parents are still here, and I insist on my parents as it is not only my father who used to run everything. My mother, Véronique Guibert de la Vaissiére had been very much involved from the beginning and has always been. She made the wine and participated in the choice of the vines to be planted. I now assist my father in the winemaking process since we are winemakers first and before everything else at Daumas Gassac. Of course nothing happens if you make the wine only. You need to sell it too and so I run the export market with one of my brother dealing with the sales in France and the other one with Europe. We assist each other here. Olivier Bourseau: Your red wine has got a majority of cabernet sauvignon, with other typical grape varieties from the Bordeaux region (Cabernet Franc and Malbec). Your father was innovative because he decided to do something different with non-local grape varieties. Why did he decide on those grape varieties only and not the local grape varieties such as Shiraz, Mourvedre, Carignan which can produce aging wines with complex flavours? Samuel Guibert: We decided on those grape varieties because of our Terroir and the pleasure of taste. If you are a chef for instance, you cook with the ingredients you like. It is the same thing here. My parents decided on Cabernet Sauvignon especially because of the suitable Terroir but also because my parents were Bordeaux wine drinkers already. So it was both a technical choice and one made out of their experience. Then we have evolved with deeper knowledge of the Terroir. Consider this: the Romanée Conti vineyards have existed for several hundreds of years. Daumas Gassac vineyards are much more recent even though there were traces of vineyards from about 1000 years ago, but it had been forgotten since. So we have had to discover the Terroir again, understand it, and continue with understanding it better and plant what we thought was the most suitable, test it, with failure, and successes…. Olivier Bourseau: What is the type of winemaking for the red wine? Samuel Guibert: Emile Peynaud said it all in his books! It is the typical winemaking process from Médoc, as it was done in most of the Châteaux in Bordeaux 20 years ago: a complete respect of Terroir, and of each year’s climate. We are not trying to produce Coca-Cola here, which would be the same wine year after year. Of course there is a kindred style in our wines, like between my brothers and I, but we are not the same! It is the same for the vintages at Daumas Gassac. The winemaking process from Médoc includes hand-picked grapes. The blending is then done before fermentation. Everything is very “natural” which means no chemicals, and no products which can not be found in nature. The fermentation is done in inoxidizable steel tanks and rather long maceration especially for the cabernet sauvignon which can last for up to 30 days. But then again the rule is that there is no rule. We make our decisions from tasting on the nose and palate, 2 or 3 times a day, and it is not the same year after year. One year it could be 30 days, the next 15 days only. Then the malolactic fermentation is done in inoxidizable steel tanks as well and then raking in barrels with very little new oak. We have sufficient tannin and slenderness in our wines no to have to tag them with wood flavours plus we do not look to put on much “make up”. So our wines are more representative of our Terroir in Daumas Gassac than the vanilla aroma from oak barrels. Barrel maturation can last for 12 months or 18 months. Each year is different. Picture below: Chais at Daumas Gassac             Olivier Bourseau: Daumas Gassac is part of the “Vin de Pays” classification. It competes nonetheless with the best wines from the higher quality level “AOC”. What do you think about the “AOC” nowadays and do you think they should still exist? Samuel Guibert: I definitely think that there is room for everyone. There is room for a pizza restaurant, for a McDonalds and for fine dining as well without trying to compare each other out. In Italy for instance, one of the most famous wine, Sassicaia, had been “Vino de Tavola” (lowest quality level in wine Italian classification) for a long time. Then the Italians have been very smart or not, and it is up to everyone to make his mind up on that, to create a “Denominazion” (highest level in Italian classification). A “DOC” was therefore created (Bolgheri) especially for Sassicaia and its fellow citizens. It is not done in our region. Are we asking for it? No we are not. Are we expecting it? No we are not. Would it have been easier to start up with an “Appelation” or “AOC” especially on the French market? Yes it would have because you weren’t good if your wine wasn’t AOC labelled 30 years ago. AOC used to mean quality. There is no sense of quality when an AOC is determined. And it is a problem today. I think the INAO (French institution dealing with AOC) has been looking into this especially with the former president René Renoux. I do not have the answer to AOC. I think we at Daumas Gassac have been living without the AOC very well. It doesn’t mean that the AOCs are not managing very well. If we are asked to think about it tomorrow we will reflect on that with them. We try to make the best wine possible here and get the acknowledgement for that with the award we have been given so far which is the Grand Cru from the Midi. Olivier Bourseau: Daumas Gassac Terroir is very important. It encompasses the geographical situation with altitude, cool winds and north aspect of the vines benefiting the wine with good acidity levels despite the warmth of the climate. The soil which is poor in nutrients has got good drainage too, and allows the roots to go deep in order to find small pockets of water and produce a good fruit. How is this Terroir transmitted to the final product and especially to the taste of your wine? Picture below: vines at Daumas Gassac. Samuel Guibert: You are asking me about Terroir and it is very interesting since I have recently been asked to take part into an article and talk about this sense of Terroir by an English journalist: Is it outdated? Usurped? I think this sense of Terroir helps some people and annoys others. It annoys people who do not have it. It doesn’t mean others with Terroir will keep it forever as Terroir can be destroyed very quickly. We have tried not to destroy it here. If you wander through the valley, it is a forest more than anything and you will see very little of the vineyards even though there is a little vineyard of 50 hectares divided into 63 plots of vines. My parents decided to respect this fantastic valley where they had fallen in love when they had arrived here. And that was well before they decided about the vineyard. They recovered the disused fields in the forest only. And why was there not one single field only? Because it was easier to work the field if it was smaller. It meant that you and your horse could pause at the end of a smaller row. Also if you were to get diseases, they would not poison all your fields since they would not be able to spread from one field to another remote field. And we have retained this. We also refuse chemicals. If you walk by our vineyards you will see wild grass growing everywhere. We do not work with horses anymore but small tractors, and everything is done by hands. So how is this Terroir impacting our wines? Taste our wines and you will see that we have lots of slenderness with a very mild alcohol level. We are talking about 12 or 13% which you would normally find in Bordeaux or Burgundy and despite the whole region making warmer wines with 14 or 15%. Our wines are also very long aging wines compared to wines to be drunk soon or not long after release as what is being done in the region. Finally we use Cabernet Sauvignon mostly whereas our neighbours make some beautiful Shiraz, Grenache or Mourvedre. Here we do not know how to deal with those local grape varieties, nor can we deal with those local grape varieties. Terroir does not allow us to! So if this is not the result of a unique Terroir, I do not know what else is! Olivier Bourseau: The Languedoc Roussillon region is very interesting since it had been producing very low quality wines until some people like your parents and other winemakers decided to look for quality and make better wines. Will this rather recent trend persist? Samuel Guibert: You missed out one step in the process! I mean before the bad quality there was good quality already in Languedoc. France was part of a group of the 3 main countries making wines for the world only. So France started to export more and more and so cheaper wines and in greater quantities were needed. In response some vineyards were lowered from “Coteaux” or slopes where yields were low to richer soils in order to grow more but growing more meant also lowering the overall quality. It is true that Daumas Gassac has been in the last 30 years the first in the Herault area to prove that one could make wine not of good quality but great quality and the highest in the world in this part of France. We have seen a rapid development of this region since with young or not as young winemakers, or people interested in wine coming to this region. Lots of people from Bordeaux have been buying vineyards here. The hectare price is probably one reason for this but there is also the fact that they now perceive that good wines can be made here. Bordeaux has for a long time been saying that the Languedoc region wasn’t at the same level really than Bordeaux region and that has helped them, but now they are coming here! So I believe that they have acknowledged the quality by themselves. Some other people from other countries who find less structure, regulations and constraints in Languedoc than elsewhere also come and say: “we can do something different here”. Languedoc keeps on learning, and we can not pretend to be what we are not. We do not have 100 or 200 years of Grand Cru history as it is the case in Bordeaux, Burgundy or the Rhone valley. We need to remain humble. We have seen between 1998 and 2001 or 2002 lots of “vins de garages” (small growers making wine literally in their garage or at the back of their house) at hallucinating prices. Lots of people were talking about them but not as many were drinking those wines. Now there has been a levelling happening for those wines and prices. We do not exist because we have been here for 5 years. It is similar to a restaurant recently launched where for the first six months it is packed and then 5 years later is it still opened? It is the same thing for a wine. We got amazing reports on our wines during the first 10 years of our existence. Then once the rest of the region was awakening, less people talked about us and 30 years later there is a second generation. You can do a vertical tasting of our wines going back to 1978 with truly great vintages so I think time matters. And I just wait for the time when my sons or grandsons or my brothers’ sons or grandsons will run Daumas Gassac, and when they will have the possibility to do a vertical tasting of our wines with 100 vintages or more, this will mark the time. Olivier Bourseau: The French wine trade is in crisis. It is a country split up between on one side the Grand Crus which are sold in a matter of seconds and on the other side wines which are struggling to get sold and overproduction. French wine was 50% of the total imported wine in the UK 25 years ago. It is now just shy of 20% with Australian wine the first imported with slightly over 20%. Is it a marketing issue according to you? Or is the “AOC” one of the reasons as well? Samuel Guibert: Where do you get that from? I have lived 7 years in New Zealand and know the wine world quite well over there. And I can tell you that it is easy to sum up the issue of the French wine trade by saying it is in crisis especially if you are coming from the New World producing countries. I admire those New World countries and I had great fun living there. I have got winemakers friends. They sell their fruits but they have been asked to leave the fruits on the vines last year. So it is not a problem France is the only country to experience. Wine consumption has been coming down but when you hear that out of 10 bottles of wine made in the world, 8 only are drunk, the 2 leftovers are not French only. There are sales issues all around the world, and so there are some consolidations going on in California, Australia or New Zealand. We notice it here a bit more with our Coop Cellars which are less adapted to sell the wine. It is less a problem with small producers who manage to sell their wine well or very well. The big Coop cellars which employ maybe 50 people to make wine do not even have a single person to sell the wine because the winemaker who owns it doesn’t understand that you need someone to travel the world so it is a mentality problem. Then is the solution in France into abandoning our sense of place or Terroir while some have been trying to create it in Australia or the concept of Appelation is being created in California? So lobbies in new world wine producing countries have understood very well that you could buy a lot of things but history, experience and Terroir. So if they force the stupid French to renounce what they spent several hundreds of years to create, and parallel to this you create it yourself, we will get to a situation where they will tell us “You the French you make Coca-Cola and we do fine dining”. So I do not think we need to drop what we have. That doesn’t mean we have to be narrow minded. I think the French winemakers have understood that they needed to travel, and master the English language which is essential. We see more and more French in trade shows around the world while a few years ago we used to see Australian or New Zealand winemakers only doing some marketing in London while at the same time the French were staying in their Châteaux saying in any case that they were making the best wines. It is indeed a problem! Then if we look into details, we do not have the same production regulations. I can not irrigate nor can I use oak chips or added flavours like with strawberry yoghurt which would never see a real strawberry. This is not told to the consumer. And the marketing says the same little story “This wine is coming from a fantastic Terroir”. I am not saying that it is only the case in Australia. This is also the case in France but regulations are very different depending on the country. So when the finger is pointed at the Languedoc region whit extreme yields of 120 hecto-hectares with our carignan, you also need to know that the Sauvignon Blanc made in New Zealand is in some cases at the same yield. So why are some countries making great wines while others are not? Before hitting on someone we need to look into greater details and perceive that there is a lot of advertising going on. It is true that it was something for the English to have their colonies making wine but nowadays they do not talk about it. They talk about their sparking wines becoming as good as the French Champagne in their wine magazines so it is a fair game! To be honest we focus on making a wine here which sincerely we could make in another country. I am very happy to be French and from the Languedoc region. My wife is American. I have lived in New Zealand for 7 years and my son has got both nationalities. I believe one can succeed anywhere as long as one puts enough effort into it not only in making great wines but also in letting the world know about it. Olivier Bourseau: Your father is a hero in the movie Mondovino which deals with the globalisation of the taste of wine. Do you agree with this idea that the world of wine is seeing an emerging global taste of wine with lots of oak, fruits and no mineral character anymore? Samuel Guibert: Yes and no. Yes because you have new wine producing countries which are starting to drink wine at the same time. So I do not have any problems with half of the planet earth making wine and that some vines were planted in China and India. You will soon find some in the Sahara desert and then as Michel Rolland said or was it Mondavi, one day it will be on the moon! Great! Unfortunately there aren’t many consumers on the moon. But it opens the taste of wine to those new world countries. It is true that often young consumers tend to go for classical tastes. Why do you eat so many sweets when you are a kid? Because you like the sweet taste. If you were to taste the same sweets today, I am not sure you would eat them. It is the same for McDonald where we all have eaten often there when we were younger not only for financial reasons. But later in life you do not do that. That is why I think the taste of wine evolves. What I fight against is the standardisation of one taste of wine only. There is room for Mc Donald and fine cuisine but everyone doesn’t start with a dish of wild boar and cepes! There is room for easy to drink and palatable wines as long as there are also wines representing some Terroirs or wines with great complexity and slenderness. The risk is when you have a highly respected person who hands out marks to the whole wine world saying this one is good and this other one not good with a clearly favoured style. The great English wine reviewers are much more respected from the wine connoisseurs: it is because they leave the door open to anyone’s tastes. Olivier Bourseau: Winemakers make great progress thanks to a global knowledge which is more and more shared all around the world. And global warming is happening at the same time. Do you think the New World wine countries will be able to compete with France so that it looses its status of the country making the best wines in the world? Samuel Guibert: I do not have the sufficient experience to tell you what will be our climate in 100 years of time with my background as a geographer. Many people talk about it and yes maybe London will have the same climate as in Bordeaux and it will be in London that you make Bordeaux wine. But the Terroir changes, it evolves and vines help to develop one as it changes the PH of the soil. The current Terroir from the Romanée Conti is not the same as 300 years ago. It has changed so maybe we will make wine on the moon… Will it be better than the wine we make at Daumas Gassac or at Château Haut Brion? I am not able to answer this question. We concentrate on making the best wine possible here and we leave it to the journalists, reviewers and drinkers to say if it is good or not. Olivier Bourseau: Final question: what is you favourite wine? Samuel Guibert: I am forced to say Mas de Daumas Gassac! But if you ask me elsewhere, I have had great emotions with the Hermitage appellation and one Chateauneuf du Pape which is called “Vieux Télégraphe”. But I do not have preferred wines actually. I think there are great bottles. I remember some dinners in Bordeaux where some of my friends at Château Palmer had brought up some old vintages from their cellars and they were absolutely fabulous bottles. I can not forget about them so it is not the wine but some great vintages and it is also which memory they remind you of. There are so many great wines all around the world. But there are some wines from New Zealand I drink not because they are the best from this country. I drink them because they remind me of my 7 years spent in this country and the people with whom I drunk the wine by then, or the people who have made the wine. So for me, it is more in this way that the wine is providing me a sense of pleasure.