Between the Corbières and Minervois, 12 miles from Carcassonne and 25 from the Mediterranean, the Ferrandière Estate is on the site of an ancient wetlands amidst the hills and mountains of the Languedoc, cut off from the sea during the uplift that raised the Pyrenees…
This brackish lake, with its unpleasant and unhealthy climate, was drained under Louis XIV, at the end of the 17th century and the land was steadily reclaimed and planted during the French Second Empire. The Domaine de la Ferrandière was owned and farmed by the Gau family for more than 100 years until they sold the estate to Jean-Claude Mas of Domaines Paul Mas in 2013.
Domaine de la Ferrandière specializes in ” Pays d’Oc” mono-cépage wines. Presently under their 70 hectares of vines they grow Chardonnay, Sauvignon Blanc, Viognier, Vermentino, Syrah, Merlot, Cabernet Sauvignon, Malbec, Marselan and Pinot Noir.
A notable fact about the vineyards is that they are flooded at the end of each winter for 40 days…an ancestral technique to regulate the natural salinity of the soils which allows the vines to be grown on their own rootstock and not attached to American root stock as almost the totality of french vines. As such the vineyard was uniquely protected from phylloxera in the beginning of the 20th Century. This gives an added measure of authenticity to these great wines of tremendous value.