The cellar was founded in 1949 under the name of “Cave Coopérative des Coteaux de Gaillac et du Pays Cordais”. The agricultural services, the Génie Rural and the Crédit Agricole du Tarn, helped administratively and financially to start it up and wanted to give it the character of a pilot cellar. This had to concern not only winemaking, but also the marketing of bottled. The first vinification took place in 1951. 80 cooperative members then contributed to a production of 13,000 hectolitres. It’s about 50 km northeast of Toulouse, on the Tarn river, which gouges its course through the Cévennes limestones from its source on Mont Lozère. When the river reaches Gaillac, the hills open up and the river becomes navigable – all the way, via the Garonne, to the Atlantic. Strangely, this was one of the two Grands Crus of Roman Gaul. (The other comprised the vineyards around Vienne, Ampuis and Tain.) As quality wine, it was a millennium ahead of Burgundy and 1500 years ahead of much of Bordeaux. We don’t know exactly how good the wine was in Roman times – but it was certainly sought-after in the Middle Ages and beyond. The Benedictine monks of the Abbaye St Michel in Gaillac created a set of appellation-like rules for its production. From 1397, what is probably the wine world’s first brand – Vins du Coq – was created for Gaillac and given official recognition in the early C16. Moreover at that latter century’s greatest ‘summit’ – the meeting between Francois I of France and Henry VIII of England in 1520, known as The Field of the Cloth of Gold – the young French king gave his still-dashing English counterpart 50 barrels of Gaillac, underlining its luxury status. At present, around 60 per cent of Gaillac’s annual production of 155,000 hl a year is red wine, and around seven per cent of that is a Primeur wine based on Gamay. Ten per cent of production is rosé, and 30 per cent is white wine. The white total, though, includes both dry and sweet whites, as well as another local specialty called Perlé, a slightly sparkling specialty of the dominant local co-operative at Labastide de Lévis; and there’s a Méthode Ancienne sparkler, too.

https://www.cave-labastide.com/