Carrying on the family tradition of hospitality

Oct 23 2009 by Helen Savage, The Journal

GÉRARD Bertrand looks like he was quarried, not born (as was once said of ex-Liverpool football star Tommy Smith). He is every inch the former rugby international, except, contrary to a surprisingly large number of reports, the height of his rugby career was the captaincy of Stade Français – when the Paris club was in the second division.

There is nothing whatsoever second best about his wine career. He grew up in the far south of France, and after the tragic early death of his father, inherited a very fine wine estate in the Corbières.

In 1992, at the ripe old age of 27, while he was still chasing a rugby career, he founded a wine company under his own name, which demonstrated that he had also inherited his father’s genius for persuading stubbornly independent winemakers to co-operate.

And over the next few years he bought a series of estates across the region: Domaine Cigalus, also in the Corbières (where he now lives); Château Laville Bertrou in Minervois La Livinère; the superb Château l’Hospitalet in la Clape, which also boasts a classy hotel and restaurant and most recently, Domaine de l’Aigle in Limoux.

As you may have noted from my report here a fortnight ago, about my attempts to pick Gérard’s grapes, he’s keen to be seen to be green. Domaine Cigalus is run according to a biodynamic regime, which involves not only homeopathic treatments (and lots and lots of manure), but strict adherence to a cosmic calendar that identifies the right days to attend to the different parts of all things living.

For example, this means, according to Cedric Lecareux, Gérard’s Estates Director, that “if a plant is in poor health we’ll prune it on a ‘root’ day and if it’s in good health we’ll wait for a ‘fruit’ day.” It may sound quaint, but Cedric has done his sums, calculates that it “takes between 30% and 50% more people” to make biodynamics work - and believes it’ll be well worth the effort.

The only unexpected factor in his plan has been the need to work around the wreck of Gérard’s first car - an ancient blue Citroën 2CV – which is rusting away beside a patch of prime vines. “When I arrived on the estate I wanted to remove it,” he told me, “I soon discovered that if I had done, I’d be dead.”

Fine wines and rusting bangers apart, Gérard is a relaxed family man and a passionate advocate of ‘Mediterranean lifestyle.’ He is canny enough to realise that not only do wine and food go well together, but that a sales pitch that makes much of that is sound business.

For Gérard did not become one of the most influential and powerful figures in the southern French wine industry by indulging in long happy meals, preserving old cars and attending to the cycles of the moon.

On those huge shoulders there is a head with a very acute business brain. He is even candid enough to admit, in print, that in Languedoc, “10 or 15 years ago, selling a bottle of wine was 60% a matter of quality. Today, it’s one third quality, one third a distribution network and one third marketing.” This is not, of course, code for an admission that quality doesn’t matter to him (it clearly does), but a very clear appreciation of the impact an easily recognised, well-promoted brand can make.

And he is prepared to be bold. One of his recent projects is to create a virtual monopoly in the sales of wine from Tautavel, one of the best villages of the Côtes du Roussillon. His deal over 10 years, with four local co-ops will, he says, make Tautavel, “a must among the wines of the South of France.” It’s the source of “some of the best Grenache in the south of France,” he says, and the first fruits of the project, Gérard Bertrand ‘Grand Terroir’ Tautavel 2006 is now in Waitrose (£7.99).

Indeed his wine can be also found in Majestic, Marks and Spencer and Tesco as well as a host of smaller, independent merchants. And all of it is very competitively priced. My wine of the week is one of the most expensive – though his splendid, top of the range ‘icon wines’ have yet to make it to British shelves.

Whether you plump for the stylish, grapey Dry Muscat (£5.99 in Tesco, sometimes on offer at £4.99) or the subtly oaked 2008 Chardonnay from the Domaine l’Aigle (£7.99 in Marks and Spencer) or indeed a host of more than a dozen other styles and appellations; you will find sound winemaking based on a commitment to growing the best possible fruit, which consistently adds up to great drinking.

I am not nearly tall enough to look him in the eye and ask him, but I suspect that Gérard’s empire is primed to grow much bigger. He has a quietly determined air. And lots of ideas.