The Legacy of a Patriarch

Ten years ago, on a driving holiday around the south of France, I visited Mas de Daumas Gassac, in the Aniane commune of Languedoc.

- RUMA SINGH

Whizzing around the estate in a jeep I was stunned by its lush, un-manicured beauty with scattered vineyards nestled in between abundant bushes and shrubs. There was an unforgettable, untamed wildness about this unique piece of terroir. The Daumas Gassac wines we tasted after that underlined this; here was majestic structure overlaid with delicate purity of fruit.

Cut to last month and the launch of Daumas Gassac wines in India in the presence of Véronique and Basile Guibert. Though the legend of Daumas Gassac’s patriarch, the late Aimé Guibert has not truly pervaded these shores — the time was ripe to understand the potential of Languedoc as a region capable of producing fine wine.

First, an introduction to Aimé Guibert, the patriarch whose towering personality and ardent beliefs have dominated Languedoc wine since the 1980s, and to Véronique his wife. Basile, the youngest of their five sons, who oversees the Asian market acknowledges, “Daumas Gassac would not exist if not for the tremendous effort — physical and mental – they both put in.”