Domaine Coudoulet

The family grows some twenty grape varieties on their land – from the classic to the unexpected. Under the Coudoulet name, they are bottled individually, one variety at a time: Pinot Gris, Viognier, Pinot Noir, Merlot, Petit Verdot and Syrah. Elsewhere in the range, rarities such as Verdejo, Assyrtiko, Petite Sirah and Carignan Blanc appear. Everything grows on limestone clay on the slopes beneath the Montagne Noire, amid garrigue scrubland, juniper, thyme, almond and olive trees, 80 to 350 metres above sea level. The philosophy is sober: harvest grapes of exceptional quality and let balance do the rest. As the family themselves put it – they don't pretend to invent anything; it all lies in the ability to bring together time and the human hand.

The estate is run today by siblings Camille and Fanély together with their cousin Guillaume. Camille trained as a winemaker (œnologue) in Burgundy and has made wine all over the world – New Zealand, Chile, the USA, South Africa, Italy – before returning home to Cesseras in 2017. Fanély, an agronomist with ten years in organic fruit farming, is responsible for sales, while Guillaume manages the vineyards. They continue what their father Pierre-André and uncle Jean-Yves began in 1985, when they took the estate out of the cooperative and bottled their first wines of their own.

The estate still holds a Roman villa – a reminder that this land has been farmed since antiquity. Coudoulet is one of three names from the same family: under Château Cesseras are the powerful cru reds, and under Ournac Frères the small, experimental batches. Three ways of making wine – from the same family, the same hands.