It’s no accident: France’s southernmost province is ideal for wine, an arc of territory running from Nimes to the Pyrenees that has been under vine since the 6th century B.C. It is endowed with sun and warmth, guaranteeing ripeness; cooling, cleansing winds from inland mountains and the sea; just enough winter rain; and diverse geology and topography, a vintner’s palette. This fortuitous mix makes for naturally healthy vineyards, where synthetic pesticides and chemical applications are rarely necessary.
Plus Ça Change
The Languedoc is by far France’s largest wine production zone, much of it from large cooperatives producing vin de pays varietal wines. Despite the volume, however, it is no longer the wellspring of unsalable plonk that filled the European “wine lake” in the early 1980s.
