The regions · France

Languedoc-Roussillon: sun, sea and France's largest vineyard

Languedoc-Roussillon is the arc of vineyards that follows the Mediterranean in southern France, from Nîmes to the Spanish border. It's the country's largest vineyard. It's home to Pays d'Oc, which since 1987 has bet on wine with the grape's name featured on the label, and also to the reds of Grenache and Carignan and the natural sweet wines of Roussillon.

Where it is and what the place is like

Languedoc-Roussillon is an amphitheater facing the sea: the vineyard follows, in an arc, the 200 kilometers of coast of the Gulf of Lion, from Nîmes, through the Camargue, to the Spanish border. Behind it rise the Cévennes, the Montagne Noire and the Pyrenees. It's France's largest vineyard, according to Inter Oc. And by the official statistics of the French Ministry of Agriculture, Hérault and Aude, two departments in the heart of the Languedoc, rank second and third in vineyard area in the country, behind only the Gironde, Bordeaux's department.

In the south, right up against Spain, Roussillon is another amphitheater, in the Pyrénées-Orientales: open to the sea on one side and ringed by the Corbières to the north, the Pyrenees and Mount Canigou to the west and the Albères to the south. It's France's sunniest wine region, according to the Roussillon wine council: 2,530 hours of sunshine a year and only 500 to 600 millimeters of rain. One day in three the tramontane blows, a strong north wind that dries the vines.

The ground changes all the time: sand by the sea; limestone, schist, clay and gravel on the plains and slopes. In the mid-1970s, the vineyard reached 430,000 hectares and made wine in quantity, with high yields in three quarters of the vines. Then, in some thirty years of work, the region restructured its vineyard and traded volume for quality.

The region's grapes

The traditional reds are Mediterranean: Grenache, Syrah, Carignan, Mourvèdre and Cinsault, the five main grapes that the Languedoc AOC lists for red and rosé. Syrah covers some 40,000 hectares in Languedoc-Roussillon. Carignan, which came from Aragon, in Spain, got a bad reputation on the plains because it yielded too much, but it's back in fashion: it handles drought well and shines from old vines, on schist or on clay and limestone. Grenache arrived from Spain in the Middle Ages and made the name of Roussillon's sweet wines.

And there are grapes from all over the world. Pays d'Oc authorizes 58 grapes and, according to Inter Oc, the body that brings together the producers of this wine, it has some 21,000 hectares of Merlot and nearly 13,800 of Chardonnay. Among the traditional whites are Grenache Blanc, Clairette, Bourboulenc, Piquepoul, Roussanne, Marsanne, Rolle (Vermentino) and Viognier; in Roussillon, also Macabeu and the Muscats.

What wine comes from there

A little of everything: red, rosé, white, sparkling and sweet. The traditional red is usually a blend of several grapes, with ripe fruit and the southern sun in the glass. Among the whites, Picpoul de Pinet, made only from Piquepoul Blanc on the shores of the Thau lagoon, is great with oysters and shellfish. In Limoux, near Carcassonne, comes Blanquette de Limoux, a sparkling wine made by the traditional method (the second fermentation happens inside the bottle), with at least 90% Mauzac.

In Roussillon, the star is natural sweet wine (vin doux naturel): fermentation is stopped halfway with alcohol, and the grape's own sugar stays in the wine. The Roussillon council says the region makes most of these wines in France. Rivesaltes comes in several colors: Grenat (red, with dark fruit), Tuilé (tile-colored, with coffee and cocoa), Ambré (amber, with orange peel and caramel) and Rosé. Muscat de Rivesaltes is white, made from Muscat. And Banyuls is born on schist terraces above the sea, up to 400 meters in altitude, in four communes on the Spanish border.

What the label says

There are two families. The first is the AOCs, with tighter rules. AOC Languedoc, which in 2007 replaced the old Coteaux du Languedoc, covers the whole arc; then come the AOCs named for a place, like Corbières, Minervois, Picpoul de Pinet and Limoux and, in Roussillon, Côtes du Roussillon and Côtes du Roussillon Villages. The idea is a three-step ladder: the region, the subregion and the subregion with a place name. In Corbières, the rules call for at least two grapes in the red, and Carignan is capped at half. Côtes du Roussillon Villages is red only and may carry names like Caramany, Latour-de-France or Tautavel.

The second family is the IGP, the protected geographical indication, like Pays d'Oc, which was born as a vin de pays in 1987 and became an IGP on August 1, 2009. The rules are looser and allow the grape name and the vintage to be featured: it's the Merlot, the Chardonnay, the Sauvignon you recognize from across the aisle. Among the sweet wines, Hors d'Âge is Rivesaltes aged at least five years, and Rancio is the taste of chestnut and dried fruit that comes with time.

What it pairs with

A red of Grenache, Syrah and Carignan is for barbecue and slow-cooked food: ribs, sausage, lamb, feijoada, cassoulet. The rosé goes with salads, fish and beach snacks. Picpoul de Pinet goes with oysters, shrimp, casquinha de siri (stuffed crab shells) and a light moqueca. A brut Blanquette de Limoux goes well with savory snacks and cheese; the demi-sec takes on fruit desserts and even chocolate ones, as the Languedoc council suggests. And a Rivesaltes Tuilé or a Banyuls goes with chocolate cake, pudim (Brazilian flan) or blue cheese. All suggestions: liked another pairing? Go with that one.

Greeks, Romans and a doctor from Perpignan

The vine arrived with the Greeks, in the 6th century BC. Then came the Romans, who founded the colony of Narbonne in 118 BC and gave land to legion veterans, many of them sons of winegrowers from Campania. The Via Domitia, the first Roman road in Gaul, crossed the Languedoc for more than 200 kilometers, linking Italy to Spain, and it still runs through the vineyards today.

Roussillon's sweet wine even has a father in history: in the 13th century, Arnau de Vilanova, physician to the court of the kings of Majorca in Perpignan, pioneered mutage, the trick of stopping fermentation with alcohol. In Limoux, the oldest writings about Blanquette date from 1544, and the AOC came in 1938, among the first in France. And a certain Thomas Jefferson, when he was the United States' ambassador to France, tasted the red of Saint-Georges-d'Orques, near Montpellier, and liked it so much that, once president of the United States, he lowered the tax on Languedoc wines.

The grapes in the labels from here

Across the 331 Languedoc-Roussillon labels in the search, the grapes that show up most. The number is how many labels use each one.

Top rated from Languedoc-Roussillon

Average rating from the people who drank it (X-Wines), from 1 to 5. Tap to see the wine's page.

• La Grange des Pères Vin de Pays de l'Hérault BlancFrance · white · Chardonnay, Roussannerating ★ 4.6
• La Grange des Pères Vin de Pays de l'HéraultFrance · red · Counoise, Syrah/Shirazrating ★ 4.6
• Gérard Bertrand Clos d'OraFrance · red · Syrah/Shiraz, Grenacherating ★ 4.6
• Peyre Rose Clos Syrah LéoneFrance · red · Syrah/Shirazrating ★ 4.5
• Peyre Rose Clos des CistesFrance · red · Syrah/Shiraz, Grenacherating ★ 4.5
• Les Creisses Les BrunesFrance · red · Syrah/Shiraz, Cabernet Sauvignonrating ★ 4.4
• Department 66 D66France · red · Grenacherating ★ 4.3
• Gérard Bertrand Coteaux Du Languedoc La Clape L'HospitalitasFrance · red · Syrah/Shirazrating ★ 4.3

See the Languedoc-Roussillon labels in the search →