La Croix Gratiot
La Croix Gratiot
[The rising star of a reinvented Picpoul]
The 33 hectares of La Croix Gratiot lie on the clay-limestone hills that ring the Bassin de Thau, blessed with sea breezes and the scent of the garrigue. It is a terroir full of colour: the reds and yellows of the clay-limestone soils, the green of the garrigue, the blue of the sky and of the Étang de Thau. The Mediterranean climate brings the grapes to ideal ripeness and lets them express everything this stretch of country has to give.
To keep biodiversity alive, a wide variety of plants is encouraged at the edges of the parcels and along the stream that runs through the property. Bat boxes have been set up on the sunny faces and beside the water to encourage the pipistrelles, which feed on the midges.
Anaïs Ricome arrived here as the rising star of Picpoul de Pinet, casting that old variety in the leading role and drawing from it one of the Languedoc's great white wines. After studying viticulture and oenology and gaining experience at wineries in New Zealand, she took over these vineyards near Marseillan from her father, Yves.
Anaïs went on to reduce the size of the holding for the sake of closer quality control, and adopted organic farming with biodynamic practice. She works parcel by parcel in the search for the finest cuvées. Above all, it is her ageing in sandstone, in foudre and in stainless steel tanks that brings out the elegance of the variety and lends it her own distinctive touch.
