Mas Jullien Pays d'Hérault Blanc 2009

Growing up on his family’s Languedoc estate in the 1970s, Olivier Jullien was surrounded by farmers using questionable practices to deliver enormous yields of sub-standard fruit. While many of his own generation turned their back on farming, Olivier – aged just 19 – harnessed the unseen potential of the ancient clay and limestone terroirs on the rocky Terrasses du Larzac, 40km inland from the Mediterranean, to push for wines of the highest quality.

By pulling up plots to replant vegetation and restore the balance of the local ecosystem, Mas Jullien is an estate that has always showed maximum respect for the land. Utilising his detailed knowledge of local soils and a traditionalist approach to winemaking, Olivier crafts profound and long-lived reds from Carignan, Mourvèdre, and Syrah, as well as a little white from rare old parcels of Carignan Blanc and Chenin Blanc.

It is no exaggeration to say that, along with neighbouring luminaries Grange des Pères and Mas de Daumas Gassac, Mas Jullien has done more than any other estate to reimagine the Languedoc as a fine wine region.

That verticals of Mas Jullien are a mainstay on three-star wine lists across France is testament to how treasured these bottles are among sommeliers and those in the know.

Rich and textural with a lemon curd and lychee character. Crisp acids and saline minerality at the end. Classy and gastronomic.