WINE ESTATE

Domaine Guillaume Gros

LUBERON

325 Chemin du Carraire
Le Bouteiller
84660 Maubec
04 90 76 63 30 / 06 75 70 87 50
www.domaineguillaumegros.com
APPOINTMENT ESSENTIAL

With 30 tiny parcels of vines to tend single-handed, Guillaume Gros is too small a producer, and too fastidious about his vineyard work, to be set up for visitors. But if you are serious about unearthing some of the Luberon’s most exciting wines, it may be worthwhile to arrange to see him – or at least to look out for bottles bearing his name. At the end of a sequence of cellar visits for a recent Decanter magazine article on the Luberon, a tasting session with Guillaume Gros propelled me home from this gorgeous region on a high.

Born into a vigneron family installed in Maubec for seven or eight generations, Gros left for Paris at the age of 17 to work as a sommelier –in Guy Savoy, Taillevent and Jules Verne, no less. Moving to Alsace, he fell so deeply in love with wine that he worked for renowned producer André Ostertag in 1995 before gravitating back to the Southern Rhône. Armed with experience at Domaine Santa Duc in Gigondas and Domaine de la Janasse in Châteauneuf-du-Pape, he was ready a decade or so ago to fly solo.

His wines range in style and price from Loquito, an uncomplicated vin de pays, through the poised, Carignan-influenced estate red to a couple of special cuvées, notably rich Coteau de l’Ara. Although lavish (reds are the main event), they have in common what he terms ‘the Ostertag effect’ – fantastic freshness and a succulently juicy mid-palate. One further plus: they are ready to drink, because Gros believes in holding his reds for a couple of years before release. And there’s birdsong in his cellar: who knows what benign effect that may have?

More information on wines in the Vaucluse:   http://bit.ly/yBYNLN