Mon Pellier: A glass of Mortiès

Sunday was a lovely sunny day. The last days of March looked like April days, with a changing, a times chilly, weather. The first day of June looked like a normal June day... Good new for me and the American friend whom I wanted to show a nice wineyard. It was an open day at the domain of Mortiès. Open day meaning degustation and sales of wines (white, rosé, and several red wines: la Mauvaise herbe, le Jamais content, Qui verra verra...), music (last year it was jazz/musette), and with the help of other local producers, fresh bread, cheese, olives, etc.

We arrived to late to lunch, and the usual international "crowd" of amateurs and families had not let much, only an absolutely delicious home-made lemon cake and japanese plums. Don't ask me why one never finds medlar pomes, while the medlar tree has been introduced to Greece around 700 BC, and to Rome around 200 BC... both the japaneese plums and medlar pomes are called "nèfles" in french, but french grocers and public authorities show a very exclusive preference toward the exotic kind, which is a bit sad, for why not let people compare and diversify?

The wines were interesting, quite different from each other, and all but light. Fine legs and robes, a lot of character. One can visit famous wineries like Daumas-Gassac and Puech-Haut, but there is nothing like taking time, discuss with the producers and go lying on a transat. Such activities aren't proposed for example by Daumas-Gassac, who organizes on July 12th an open air concert (Patrizia Bovi and l’Ensemble Micrologus « Che mangera la sposa ? », italian XVIth C. music) followed by a tasting of the Grands crus and a cocktail, for only 45€. Mr. Aimé Guibert, the lord of the mas, was an hero of the resistance in the 2004 french american movie by Jonathan Nossiter, Mondovino. He is far from being the only one. Grapes are hand-picked and wine is naturally made in all the famillial domains I love.

We arrived too late because we stopped on our way to see a bit of a jumping competition at the Verriès, in Saint-Gély-du Fesc. I was impressed by the number of sponsors, for there weren't any or almost when I took lessons there. Not many changes for the rest: good-willing horses for young teenagers, who were 90% female, happy famillies, but no challenger for a Grand Prix yet... I want to be invited again to the Prix de Diane. Please hurry, it will take place on June 15th. I have nice hats, I just need to borrow a very good small camera and a todler's leash (just kidding, it wouldn't be elegant!).

The domain of Morties is located in a valley, more or less at the feet of the local eminence, the Pic Saint-Loup, out Fujiyama, the natural barrier between Montpellier and the "north". The pic is only 658 meters high and its sibbling, the Hortus, even more, but walking to the top is great, especially with a few notions of geology, an interest for the birds of prey, and/or a rising sun... Though isolated enough, it is an outpost of the Cévennes. The stone is a limestone rich of sea sediments - the sea is 30 km far, but it reached this place during the Jurassic age. The movements of the tectonic plates raised up the white stone toward the sky...

According to ancient drawings and paintings, the pic was almost bold centuries long, due to pasture more than to the dry and windy weather. Now my Icelandic friends might complain, as they did in the Cévennes, that the trees hide the mountain. The cliffs and the medieval castles of Viviourès and Montferrand keep them from being to bored.

The pic has its legend. Three brothers, Loup, Guiral et Clair, loved the beautiful Bertrade. They decided she would chose her husband amongst them or the surviving ones when they would be back from a crusade. The three brothers returned, but she was dead. They decided to live as hermits at the top of three mountains. Each year, on March 19, they lighted a fire to honor her memory...

One can approach the Pic through the route de Ganges, then take the road to Cazevielle, a medieval village dying of gentrification, a desert full of high walls. Lovely prairies and olive trees around... Trees get denser, hiding bulls and U-turns, turning into a forest... forest which ends on the vineyards. It is wide enough. Most of the wines are made from several grape varieties. Everything is on the website of Mortiès... It is my favorite domain of the close surroundings, with the Mas de Perry, or Mas Nicot, in Murles. I admit I don't only consider the qualities of the wines, but also the magic of the places.

The owners maintained the charm of the old house. It is perfectly restaured and there still is a huge sink made of a stone, and the large ancient oven in the wall. A baker made the bread. He annouced when he would take the bread out of the oven, so that children, parents and others could see, smell, and listen to him when he makes sing the bread to check it.

Dagobert (great dane)

0° Alcohol

Ophrys bécasse (wild protected orchid)

My advice if you go...

Come back through Saint-Jean de Cucules, and if you can, visit Les Matelles (medieval circulade) and have a rest at the emergence of the Lez river (protected site). I couldn't do all this, but it is worth it. It can be a usefull walk, also, if you don't spit the wine. We didn't taste all of them, yet the owners would certainly have liked us to walk a bit before driving, by the way. Fortunately we were alone on the road, most of the cars being stuck in the highways trafic after a 4-days week-end at the beach, and we find serious reasons to drive really very slow, like birds-watching.