When the name of an area is called La Livinière (from the Latin Lavineira) you can safely assume it’s long been known for its wines. The vineyards of this Cru are etched into the limestone terraces and plateaus of the Minervois high country; the mineral soils and altitude can bring finesse, while the sunny Mediterranean climate ensures regular ripeness. This part of the Minervois (in southern France) has always had enormous potential. Today there are a handful of growers showing what is possible when the soil and site are respected and nurtured. Brunnhilde Claux is one such grower.

While we don’t work extensively with the wines of Southern France, you can be assured that when we do it is with very good reason. Run almost single-handedly by the talented Brunnhilde Claux, Courbissac’s wines turn the typical Southern French red stereotype on its head. They are pure fruited and perfumed wines that are shot through with mineral freshness. Of course, these are wines from the South of France, so you expect flesh and you expect intensity, yet here you also have lower alcohols, a complete absence of new oak, and the kind of finesse very rarely encountered in this rugged, Mediterranean landscape. These wines serve as an homage to the Minervois wines of old—before modern viticulture, winemaking and wine culture encouraged far riper fruit, excessive new oak and a tendency towards glossy, high alcohol wines. 

Producers like Courbissac are bringing back the digestibility, polish and drinkability Minervois was once known for. They are precise, fresh and pure wines, and epitomise all that is thrilling about the ‘new’ France.

Minervois is a young region whose appellation status was granted in 1985. It’s an area littered with extraordinarily rocky, high-country vineyards and pockets of old vines growing out of limestone plateaux and slopes. The climate, soils and range of altitudes are almost tailor-made for vine cultivation, and the Courbissac estate covers around 30 hectares of slopes nestled along the jagged limestone of La Petit Causse, within the Minervois’ Cru of La Livinière. All the vineyards are bush vines and are managed organically (with a great deal of thought). There is no irrigation and yields are very low—20 hectolitres per hectare is considered a big crop here (that’s less than 1.5 tonnes per acre). There are a lot of old vines and an emphasis on indigenous varieties.

Unsurprisingly, for a grower who trained under Gérard & Ghislaine Gauby and who worked with Terroir al Límit, Brunnhilde Claux has continued the estate’s biodynamic traditions and, in fact, has taken them further. Yet Claux’s main drive has been to work the vineyards to achieve ripeness at the lowest possible Baumé – her aim being to capture as much freshness as possible. This work, combined with Claux’s gentle whole bunch winemaking–infusion rather than extraction–and the complete absence of new oak, has already produced a range of wines that are appreciably livelier, more seductive and more fragrant than what we had come to expect of this appellation.