Languedoc-Roussillon has become France’s bane and its great hope.
Bane because this massive southern region, with 740,000 acres in vine, or half again as much as all California, has long been a wine lake - a source for oceans of industrial wine to slake thirst in Europe and the Americas alike.
But let’s focus on the hope. For two decades, it has also enjoyed a renaissance as a region that blends Old World tradition and New World freedom. Here is the one place in France where rules are still being written. It seemingly wants to say you can have it both ways: You can have big fruit in your wine, and you can have it without sacrificing the signature of place.
Yet its revolutionary phase has matured. Houses like Mas Champart and Daumas Gassac have made their names here. So what’s the state of the art?
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