Mas Coutelou - Puimisson (organic)

Five generations of the Coutelou family have tended vines and made wine in the village of Puimisson, 10 kilometres or so north of Béziers. In 1987 Jean-Claude Coutelou converted the domaine to organic practices (one of the first in France to do so) as well as expanding the number of hectares under vine.
 
Jean-Claude's son Jean-François - known to everyone as Jeff - previously worked as a teacher in Paris, occasionally working on the vines and in the cellar during visits home. He finally took the reins of Mas Coutelou full-time in the early 2000s, upon which he immediately began experimenting. After having tasted some of the "natural" wines emerging in other regions of France, he decided to follow a similar path. As a result, all of Jeff's wines have been ‘sans sulfites’ since 2006, with an obsessive approach to cleanliness in the winery and a shot of CO2 at the bottling stage ensuring that the wines are beautifully clean - and also with the ability to age.

 

Jeff has also planted many different trees, shrubs and flowers on the perimeters of his various vineyards, in order to promote biodiversity. The 13 hectares of vineyards are now planted with over thirty different grape varieties - some very rare - with yields of around 35 hl/ha.