Jean Lignères with the Montagne d'Alaric visible just over his right shoulder.
The Château la Baronne sits in the shadow of a long, humpback whale-shaped mountain, the Montagne d’Alaric, which dominates the Aude valley between Narbonne and Carcassonne. Only 600 meters in height, the mountain reminded me of the Appalachian mountains that I explored in my youth: well-worn, ancient summits with broad, rounded shoulders. In comparison to the nearby Pyrenees, several hours to the southwest of here, this is more a hill than a mountain.
But maybe the Montagne d’Alaric was higher in the 5th century when it was named for the Visigoth King, Alaric II, who fought here against the Franks. What it might lack in altitude, the Montagne d’Alaric makes up in ambiance and lore. Rumor has it that Alaric’s tomb, filled with a rich treasure, is in a cave beneath the mountain. The mountain also sits on one of the ancient pilgrimage trails that led to Compostelle, Spain, and many of the Cathar strongholds were in the surrounding mountains and fortified hilltop towns–places like the UNESCO World Heritage Site Carcassonne.
This is the Corbières, one of the wildest, least populated areas of France, and one of its largest wine regions. For years, this part of the Languedoc-Roussillon was known for low-quality red wines. The quality of the wine in this region has improved immensely over the past decade, however, as grape yields have been reduced and more respectful viticulture has taken hold, with an increasing number of winemakers avoiding the use of pesticides, herbicides and chemical fertilizers.
The Lignères family, owners of the Château la Baronne, has been a part of this quality improvement movement. The family’s ties to the wine business can be traced to the 16th century, but the Château la Baronne story begins in 1957 when André and Suzette Lignères bought the estate. Andre’s parents, who were from the two villages on either side of the estate–Moux and Fontcouverte, already had vineyards in both villages, as well as a négociant business in Moux. Before his retirement, André was the general practitioner in Moux and his wife Suzette was a pharmacist. Their children have chosen careers that broadly emulate their parents’ interest in science: eldest son Jean, is now the GP in Moux, having taken over his father’s medical practice, his brother Paul is a dentist, and their sister Geneviéve is a biologist.
The 90-ha estate includes a wide variety of different soil types. Primarily limestone-based, some areas have varying amounts of clay and mineral-laden sandstone. The geological forces that pushed up the Alaric mountain ridge and the Black Mountains that run to the north of here, have created a rich, terrestrial kaleidoscope that the Lignères have been deciphering for the past 50 years. The unique character of their wide range of wines is, in part, a result of having chosen the right grape variety and viticultural technique for each vineyard parcel. They credit much of the early work in this effort to assistance they received from Marc Dubernet, a Ph.D. in chemistry and oenology, who is affiliated with the Laboratoires Dubernet in Narbonne.
In 2002, the man who the Lignères call their most “faithful fan,” Richard Marlowe, introduced them to Tuscan wine consultant Stefano Chioccioli. Chioccioli, who is one of Italy’s leading winemakers, has had, they say, a profound influence on their estate. Jean Lignères told me that “Stefano understands our ‘terroir’ concept. We both share the goal of producing wines with more of everything—weight, aroma, dimension, focus, varietal definition, and, most importantly, allowing the terroir to shine through in every cuvée.”
In the 1920s, Louis Lignères delivered Château la Baronne wines with this Berliet barrel-carrier truck. His customers had to be patient: it took him 22 hours, at an average speed of 11 kph (around 7 mph), to go from Alaric Mountain to Lourdes in the foothills of the Pyrenees Mountains. He signaled his arrival with the truck’s distinctive horn. One of the La Baronne wines, in memory of that horn, is now called Le Signal.
La Pièce de Roche is a excellent example of a Lignères wine that transcends time and place. “La Pièce” is Languedoc vernacular for the most beautiful, best piece of ground on an estate. In 1890, to celebrate his second wedding anniversary, the Lignères sibling’s great-grandfather, Théophile Fourès, had his best friend, Louis Roche, plant 16,000 Carignan vines on a four-hectare parcel of fine, limestone gravel that came to be known as La Pièce de Roche. These 119-year-old vines, among the oldest in the Languedoc-Roussillon, produce a marvelous, ruby red, meaty 100% Carignan wine that would make a believer out of the most Carignan-skeptic wine drinker.
The Carignan grapes used to make La Pièce de Roche wine, like all of the grapes on the estate, are handpicked, with the pickers selecting only the best grapes. A double-sorting process at the cellar, once before the grapes are destemmed and once afterwards, further ensures the quality of the fruit. An experimental system, designed to be gentler than a pump, transfers the grapes to stainless steel vats where they ferment for 28 days. Double refrigeration bands (one at the top and one at the bottom) on the vats ensure, with extra precision, the fermentation temperature.
A special racking system allows barrels to be rotated by hand to rack (mix up) the dead yeast cells, grape seeds and other sediments that settle to the bottom of the barrel.
Soft, manual pigeages (the punching down of the cap of skins and other solids from the grapes) and regular remontages (the pumping over of the wine through the cap) are done to ensure the optimum extraction of color and tannins needed to make a deeply colored red wine. Once the alcoholic fermentation is completed, the wine is transferred to oak barrels for the malolactic fermentation. The Lignères use a special barrel racking system, with the barrels held in a huge steel framework, looking much like the wine-bottle stands you can place on a counter or table. This permits them to do a weekly battonage (the French term for lees stirring, the mixing up of the dead yeast cells, grape seeds, pulp, stems and skin fragments that settle to the bottom of the container during the fermentation process), by simply rotating the barrel in its rack. This regular lees stirring helps to improve the mouth feel of the wine and to increase its stability.
The Pièce de Roche wine ages for 16 months in the barrel. It regularly receives scores of 89 or 90 points from magazines such as The Wine Spectator, The Wine Report and The Wine Enthusiast.
The Château la Baronne produces a wide range of other wines, including the Notre Dame, a 95% Syrah-5% Mourvèdre red wine; a 30% Carignan-40% Mourvèdre-30% Syrah red wine called Aric (the name for the Visigoth King Alaric in the local dialect); the Cabanon de Pascal, a 70% Grenache-30% Merlot red wine; Las Vals Rouge, a 95% Mourvèdre-5% Syrah red wine; and Las Vals Blanc, a 80% Roussanne-10% Grenache gris-10% Vermentino white wine.
There are also four Château la Baronne estate wines: Le Signal (which is named for the distinctive horn sound that would signal the arrival of the truck that was used to deliver barrels of the estate’s wine in the 1920s; and La Baronne Blanc, Rosé and Rouge wines.
The Plo de Maorou treasure
The Lignères belief in their terroir-driven wine and the Corbières is beginning to pay off. In 2006, the Château la Baronne, along with Jackson Family Wines in California, purchased a 20-ha parcel of vines called Plo de Maorou. This joint venture joins the more than 34 wine brands that Jackson Family Wines markets, including some of the finest vineyards in California, as well as winery estates in South America, Italy, France and Australia.
Jean Lignères recalls the exact moment when he met the legendary Jess Jackson, one of the world’s richest men and founder of Kendall-Jackson wines, and one of, along with his co-proprietor (and wife) Barbara Banke, the major forces in the wine business not just in the US but around the globe. “We were in Bordeaux to participate in a wine tasting of French organic wine producers,” he says. “A distinguished man with silver hair came up to our stand and tasted our wine. He received a call on his mobile phone—something about a horse [Jackson is a leading figure, as well, in Thoroughbred horse raising], and then he went away. He returned later with another man, who also tasted our wine.” This led, eventually, to Kendall-Jackson becoming the US distributor of Château la Baronne wine.
Ethereally beautiful, with a backdrop of wind turbines, the Plo de Maorou vineyard is the focus of a joint venture between the Château la Baronne and Jackson Family Wines.
In the Plo de Maorou, a vineyard that the Lignères had been hoping for years to purchase, Jackson Family Wines and the Lignères family feel that they have found a site that could produce the absolute best wines that the Corbières could offer. It’s a dramatic location, situated high on a plateau that offers views of the Pyrenees Mountains to the southwest and the Mediterranean Sea that is only 40 km away to the south.
The nearby ridge of the Alaric mountains marks the limit of the Mediterranean influence on the climate, but the prevailing winds for much of the year come from the western, Atlantic side. The Cers, a westerly or northwesterly wind, which frequently reaches speeds of 90 kph, helps to prevent mildew disease in the vineyard. In the summer, breezes off the Mediterranean help to temper the heat, allowing the grapes to mature more slowly.
Ten wind turbines that are installed on a ridge that runs along one side of the vineyard turn constantly in the wind, giving you an ethereal sensation as you walk among the Syrah, Grenache, Mourvèdre grape vines and listen to the steady whine of the high-tech, modern turbines.
The perfect location, terroir that has already proven to produce excellent wines, the Lignères’ dedication and generations of winemaking experience, the expertise of their oneologue Stefano Chioccioli, and the might and backing of Jackson Family Wines may finally show the world that the Corbières deserves some of the recognition that more well-known French wine appellations have benefited from.
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