Matthew Stubbs, MW, in Vinécole's Tasting/Conference room.
The Languedoc-Roussillon, extending from Nîmes and Montpellier in the east and reaching as far southwest as the Spanish border, is arguably the most exciting wine region in the world. About a quarter of all wine-producing vines in France are located here, with the topography and soil types ranging from the dry, low-lying, scrubland-on-limestone soils of the Terrasses du Larzac to higher-altitude terrain on the hillsides of the Montagne Noire, where you find schist, granite and sandstone.
The region long had a reputation for producing rustic, low-quality, inexpensive wines, but that has changed in the last decade as younger-generation producers have lowered yields, done away with chemical herbicides, and sought to make quality wines that are gaining fans in France and abroad. A large number of foreigners, attracted to the region’s quality of life and abundance of old vines, have introduced a welcome dose of fresh life and innovative spirit.
Understanding the wines and the myriad of wine appellations in the Languedoc-Roussillon could take a lifetime. But I recently came across a way for anyone to gain a quick appreciation and taste for the variety and the quality of wines here: a wine school called Vinécole that is located on the grounds of Domaine Gayda, a vineyard southeast of the fortified medieval city of Carcassonne.
Matthew Stubbs, a Master of Wine, who was previously the chief wine buyer for the Safeway UK supermarket chain, runs the school. Stubbs moved his family to France in 2003, and he spent a year commuting back and forth to the U.K. before he left his buyer position in 2004. He then worked as a consultant, advising winemakers in France, Argentina and Chile about their winemaking and commercial operations. But, in the back of his mind, he always had the desire to open a wine school.
He was unable to find a French winemaker who shared his entrepreneurial vision, but Domaine Gayda’s owners/managers, a fellow English man and two South African gentlemen, have embraced this innovative concept of a wine school embedded in a winery. Gayda France, which is the parent organization, dates from 2005, when 11 hectares (27 acres) was purchased to create a modern winery. Offices and a gourmet restaurant with views of the nearby Pyrenees were built on top of the winery, and a former Post House on the grounds was renovated into four luxury gîte apartments. The operation has since expanded to include 8 hectares (20 acres) in the nearby Minervois region, as well as grape supplier agreements with producers in the Corbières and several areas of the Roussillon, towards the Spanish border.
Stubbs happened to come to the Gayda’s restaurant in 2008 to do a wine tasting event. It wasn’t long afterward that the Languedoc-Roussillon’s first wine school was installed in a specially constructed tasting and conference room on the winery grounds.
He’s assisted by Emma Kershaw who first learned about wine at a Paris wine bar and who then went on to gain a teaching certificate in what’s widely regarded as the world’s leading provider of wine education, the British Wine & Spirit Education Trust. WSET courses provide both professionals in the wine and spirit fields, as well as non-professionals, a series of courses and exams that can lead to certification in five increasingly higher levels of theoretical knowledge of wine and spirit countries and regions of production, regulations, grape varieties, and wine tasting techniques. Vinécole is the only “Approved WSET Program Provider” in the Languedoc-Roussillon.
Stubbs says that the wine school has four categories of customers: tourists interested in the region’s wines; wine and spirit industry professionals seeking WSET certification; large Languedoc-Roussillion wine producers, such as the Advini Group, the result of the recent merger of the Montpellier-based JeanJean Group and the Chablis-based Laroche Group, forming France’s third largest wine producer with vineyards in the South of France, Chablis, Chile and South Africa; and individuals and groups seeking organized tours of local vineyards.
There’s also, he explained, related consulting work done through Vinécole, including assisting producers wanting advice and expertise on how to export their wines; investors considering purchasing vineyards or domains in the Languedoc-Roussillon; and wine buyers and importers seeking to import wines from the South of France.
A Taste of the Languedoc-Roussillon
The Vinécole non-professional wine tastings range from a two-hour tasting tour of eight Languedoc-Roussillon wines (€30) to a one-day “Wine Experience” tasting (€125), which includes a tour of the vineyard and winery, detailed explanations of how grapes are grown and wine is made, and that finishes with the participants blending their own wine from barrels of different varietal wines.
There are “Family Tastings” (€30 for adults, €10 for children), with the adults tasting wine and the children doing a blind tasting of eight different fruit juices, as well as a “Wine Evening” tasting that would be great fun, I’m sure, for a group of wine enthusiasts. Using something that they call a “Wine Options” wine identification game, Vinécole pits groups of four against one another to answer questions about the wines that are served to them during a three-course dinner. In addition to the dinner and wines, the winning team receives a prize (plus prizes are given out throughout the evening to teams that answer certain bonus questions). The cost is €40 per person.
A full list of the Vinécole classes, along with information about their gîte accommodations, is available on their website. I can’t attest to the classes or accommodations, but I heard through an acquaintance that had taken a Vinécole professional tasting course that it was well worth the money. The professionalism of Matthew Stubbs and Emma Kershaw, along with the attention to detail that is evident in all of the wine school and winery facilities, certainly supports that attestation.
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We just took a group of journalists here on a Sud de France press trip, it was excellent. Highly recommended!