The Guibert family's uncloned Cabernet Sauvignon from red glacial soils in the Upper Gassac Valley, near Aniane, Languedoc.
The Upper Gassac Valley lies near Aniane in the Hérault, where geographer Henri Enjalbert found deep, well-drained soils under the garrigue, the wild Mediterranean scrub. They are wind-blown glacial deposits, poor in humus and rich in iron and other mineral oxides. Cold night air drains from the Larzac plateau at 850 m and north-facing slopes cut the summer sun; together they delay flowering by about three weeks.
The estate has 50 hectares of vines in more than 50 clearings within 1,000 hectares of garrigue. The vines come from uncloned cuttings, about 50 varieties in all, and the only fertiliser is compost made from Larzac sheep manure.
In 1971 ethnologist Véronique Guibert and her husband Aimé, a Millau glove maker, came upon an abandoned farmhouse in the Gassac valley. On Enjalbert's advice they planted uncloned Cabernet Sauvignon from top Bordeaux properties in 1972, and Émile Peynaud advised on the first vintage, 1978.
The Rosé Frizant joined the red and white in 1990. Sons Samuel, Gaël, Roman and Basile have run the estate since 2009, and took full control after Aimé died in 2016.