Languedoc’s Wine-Making Colossus: Corbières

First published: February 16, 2025 by Dominic Rippon

On the hunt for winter warmers, we navigate Languedoc-Roussillon’s winemaking colossus.

Corbières is both the largest and most productive wine appellation in France’s Languedoc-Roussillon, with 8,700 hectares of vines producing 283,000 hectolitres of wine in 2022. This is a region that stretches from just south-east of Carcassonne’s medieval citadel, all the way east to the shores of the Mediterranean, and south deep into the foothills of the Pyrenees. Although Corbières can be made in any of the three colours, the overwhelming majority are full-blooded reds, made from the broad palette of Mediterranean grapes that includes Grenache noir, Carignan, Mourvèdre, Lledoner Pelut, Syrah and Cinsault. Corbières rosé is blended from the same grapes and is growing in importance, now representing 15% of production. Only 5% of the appellation is devoted to white wines, although these can be excellent, with surprisingly fresh, sometimes mineral, flavours squeezed from grapes like Grenache blanc, Macabeu, Roussanne, Marsanne and Vermentino.

Superior sub-zone

Despite the enormous scale and variety of Corbières’s vineyards, attempts in the early 1990s to delimit and classify 11 different sub-zones led to the establishment of only one superior cru appellation, that of Corbières-Boutenac. Only in this zone were the wines considered to be of a consistently higher quality than those made elsewhere in Corbières. Corbières-Boutenac is an appellation for red wines only, which must be made according to stricter rules than for Corbières; the resulting wines show a unique combination of weight and poised refinement. As elsewhere in Corbières, the Syrah and Mourvèdre grapes have made inroads since the 1980s, but it is Grenache and Carignan that have come to define Corbières-Boutenac. The latter of these grapes has a particular affinity for the red sandstone Boutenac terroir, where it resists both heat and water stress – an advantage that has, in recent years, morphed into a necessity. Corbières-Boutenac has set the pace for the larger Corbières appellation, which has made great strides in the past two decades. It may be a while before we see the establishment of new cru appellations in Corbières, but the scene is set for the further delimitation of a beautiful, diverse vineyard area that deserves to be mapped in greater detail.