Carole Frelin, sales manager of the Jacques Frelin wine estate. Midi Libre – Florence Guilhem
Olivier Sébé est à la tête du Domaine La Clausade, à Mauguio. Midi Libre – Florence Guilhem
L’Occitanie est pionnière dans la plantation des cépages résistants. Méconnus encore des consommateurs, comment les faire connaître et les vendre ? Les différentes stratégies des vignerons.
Floréal, Artaban, Vidoc, Souvignier gris, Muscaris… Resistant grape varieties are gaining ground in France, even though they only represent “0.35% of the French wine-growing area“, explains Foued Cheriet, a researcher at INRAe in Montpellier. Resulting from crosses between European vines and other species carrying resistance genes, these grape varieties come from long-term French and foreign study programs. Officially recognized as capable of producing wine, they appear in the official catalog of species and varieties of plants cultivated in France and are classified on the list of varieties of wine grape vines.
They are most widely planted in Occitanie, particularly in Languedoc-Roussillon. If winegrowers are increasingly attracted to them, it is not for nothing. These grape varieties make it possible, on the one hand, to reduce the number of fungicide treatments by 80%, and, on the other hand, to produce quality wines. The only problem: although they sell well for export, wines made from resistant grape varieties are still struggling to find consumers in France. To promote them, winegrowers are developing new strategies.
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Olivier Sébé, head of Domaine La Clausade in Mauguio, is full of praise for the resistant grape varieties that he has planted massively. Of the 16 hectares in organic production, 14 hectares are dedicated to them. “These grape varieties allow us to make wines that are different from others in biodynamics, with new profiles, both fruity and light. The mainstream, not for us“. A position clearly displayed in the names chosen for his vintages: “À contre-courant”, “L’Affranchi”, “L’Irrésistible”, “L’Insolent”…
In his communication, it is not the names of these grape varieties that he highlights but the work he does in the vineyard without any treatment. The vine varieties naturally resistant to diseases come after. “Consumers do not buy grape varieties, but wine, he reminds us. In any case, most people don't know their names. That's why we wrote them on the back label. What matters is the profile of the wine. That's what we insist on with our customers. What we sell are wines, not grape varieties.”
In any case, he is convinced that knowledge of these grape varieties will come later and that the term resistant will eventually disappear to make way for their proper name, as was the case for the grape varieties called improvers (cabernet sauvignon, merlot, etc.) in their time when they were planted in Languedoc in the 1980s. “We just have to give time time. If Paris had been built in a day, we would know about it“, he jokes.
“We launched them under our recognized brand”
At Jacques Frelin, one of the pioneers in organic wines, resistant grape varieties have been added to the range of varieties already present at the estate. “We have planted 2 ha of Floréal that we vinify as a single varietal at 10.5°C and 2 ha of Souvignier Gris, but we have not yet marketed the latter“, says Carole Frelin, sales manager for France at the winery, whose head office is in Montpellier.
To promote these grape varieties, “we highlight the fact that they require less treatment and the taste interest they present. But to market them well, we launched them under our well-known brand, “Hérisson malin””.
On the label, if the name of the grape variety is indicated, the term resistant does not appear. “That's too much information. We preferred to write low alcohol next to the name“, she adds. A sales argument much more popular today with consumers looking for low-alcohol wines. The 30,000 bottles are all sold in organic stores, which are sensitive by definition to environmental protection.
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