Aliment Wines & the Gobelet Hand
Domaine de Courbissac is an estate in the Minervois, near the village of Cesseras in the Hérault, Occitanie, France — situated at 200 metres altitude on the last argilo-calcaire (clay-limestone) foothills before the Montagne Noire. The property was purchased in 2000 by Alsatian winemaker Marc Tempé and film producer Reinhard Brundig. Thirteen years later, in 2013, they handed the reins to Brunnhilde Claux — then barely thirty — who had honed her craft at the iconic Domaine Gauby in Roussillon and Terroir al Límít in Priorat. Today, Brunnhilde farms a patrimony of old vines — including 90-year-old Grenache, 70-year-old Carignan, and 70-year-old Cinsault — pruned in the traditional gobelet (bush vine) style, alongside middle-aged Syrah and Mourvèdre, and historic white varieties such as Terret Gris and Listan (Palomino). Her philosophy is radical in its humility: she makes vin d'aliment — wines for the table, not grand crus — with whole-bunch fermentation in concrete tanks, no oak, gentle extraction, minimal sulphur, and almost no copper. The result is Minervois of extraordinary transparency, low alcohol, and honest pleasure: wines that taste of the Mediterranean sun, the limestone scree, and the patient, sculptural hand of the gobelet pruner.
Gauby, Priorat & the Romanesque Chapel
The story of Domaine de Courbissac begins in 2000, when Marc Tempé — an Alsatian winemaker with a reputation for precision — and Reinhard Brundig — a film producer with a passion for wine — purchased an estate on the clay-limestone foothills of the Minervois, near the village of Cesseras. The property came with a cellar, vineyards, and a landscape scarred by the industrial viticulture of the late 20th century: many of the region's historic indigenous varieties had been ripped out and replaced with Merlot, Cabernet Sauvignon, and Chardonnay in the pursuit of global marketability. Tempé and Brundig began the slow work of restoration, but it was not until 2013 that the estate found its true voice.
In that year, they handed control to Brunnhilde Claux, a vigneronne who had spent her formative years at Domaine Gauby — the iconic Roussillon estate known for its terroir-driven natural wines — and later at Terroir al Límít in Priorat, where she learned the rigours of old-vine farming on steep, schistous terraces. Brunnhilde arrived at Courbissac at a personal crossroads: she had left Priorat with her young son, searching for a place to farm independently, and found herself drawn to a property that sat next to a Romanesque chapel. The chapel stirred a deep memory — her grandparents had lived in one — and she knew, instinctively, that this was where she should be. She was thirty, full of energy, and convinced that the Minervois, despite its reputation for cheap bulk wine, held the potential for something honest and beautiful.
From the first day, her vision was clear: she did not want to make grand wines, or big wines, or wines of international ambition. She wanted to make vin d'aliment — wines of nourishment, wines that sit on the table when people gather to eat, wines that are drunk rather than collected, wines that recall the 11% and 12% alcohol levels of the region's pre-industrial past. The world had forgotten these wines, seduced by the pursuit of dark colour, heavy oak, and high extraction. Brunnhilde set out to remember them.
"I never wanted to make grand wines, or big wines. I wanted to make 'aliment' wines — foodie wines — wines that are on the table when people gather around to eat."
— Brunnhilde Claux
Minervois & the Montagne Noire
The estate sits at 200 metres above sea level on the last argilo-calcaire foothills of the Minervois, just before the land rises into the dense forests of the Montagne Noire. It is a landscape of prehistoric memory and Romanesque quiet: the grotte ornée de l'Aldène — a decorated prehistoric cave — lies nearby, as does the Dolmen des Fades and the chapelle romane de Saint-Germain. The vineyards are planted on clay-limestone soils of medium depth, with scree and stone that provide drainage and mineral stress, while the clay retains enough moisture to sustain the old vines through the brutal Mediterranean summers.
The climate is quintessentially Mediterranean: hot, dry summers, mild winters, and the constant breath of the tramontane wind that sweeps down from the Montagne Noire, drying the vines and reducing disease pressure. But the elevation and the proximity to the mountain create a cooling effect that preserves acidity and slows ripening — a crucial advantage in an era of climate change, and one that Brunnhilde exploits by harvesting early, while the grapes are still crunchy and fresh. The result is wines of moderate alcohol, vibrant acidity, and transparent fruit — a deliberate rejection of the overripe, overextracted style that has dominated the Languedoc for decades.
The vineyard patrimony is exceptional. Scattered across the estate are 90-year-old Grenache, 70-year-old Carignan, and 70-year-old Cinsault — free-standing vines, pruned in the traditional gobelet style, without wires or trellises. These are not the neat, machine-harvestable rows of modern viticulture; they are sculptural, individual bushes, each one shaped by hand over decades, with sap distributed like fingers across multiple arms rather than forced into a single cordon. Brunnhilde also tends middle-aged Syrah and Mourvèdre, and a fascinating collection of white varieties — Terret Gris, Listan (Palomino), Marsanne, Muscat, and Grenache Gris — some of which are unidentified, awaiting the visit of an ampelographer. She treats these vines as a mother treats many children: with patience, attention, and the humility to admit she does not yet know all their names.
The Domaine de Courbissac is located near the village of Cesseras, in the Minervois appellation of the Hérault department, Occitanie, France. The estate sits at 200 metres altitude on the last clay-limestone foothills before the Montagne Noire, a landscape of prehistoric caves, dolmens, and Romanesque chapels. The site is neither fully mountain nor fully plain, capturing the cooling air drainage of the Montagne Noire while benefiting from the Mediterranean sun. The surrounding landscape is rugged and wild, with garrigue, oak scrub, and dry-stone terraces that have defined the region's agriculture for millennia. The property is accessible from Carcassonne, Narbonne, and the A61 autoroute, and lies within one of the most historically significant but commercially undervalued wine regions of southern France.
The Courbissac terroir is defined by clay-limestone (argilo-calcaire) soils on the lower foothills of the Montagne Noire, at 200 metres elevation. The clay component provides water retention and fertility, sustaining the old vines through dry summers, while the limestone scree and stone provide drainage, mineral stress, and the chalky, saline imprint that distinguishes the estate's wines. The elevation is critical: it moderates the Mediterranean heat, preserves acidity, and allows Brunnhilde to harvest earlier than many of her neighbours, capturing the crunchy freshness she prizes. The combination of clay-limestone geology, mountain-cooled nights, and the drying tramontane wind creates a microclimate of balance — warm enough to ripen Grenache and Cinsault fully, cool enough to prevent the alcohol escalation and loss of aromatic delicacy that plague lower-lying Minervois vineyards.
Brunnhilde Claux farms the estate according to organic and biodynamic principles, rejecting all synthetic herbicides, fungicides, and chemical fertilisers. Her approach is one of minimal disturbance: she sprays only six times per year or less, using sulphur, stinging nettles, horsetail, and Symphytum (comfrey) to strengthen the vines' natural defences. She is fiercely opposed to excessive copper use — the standard organic treatment for downy mildew — because it is a heavy metal that accumulates in the soil and poisons the ecosystem. She uses copper once, at the first sign of mildew pressure, and if the pressure continues, she stops treating rather than saturating the soil. She focuses on quality over quantity, accepting that in difficult years — such as 2018, when she lost everything to mildew — the vineyard must be allowed to speak its truth rather than being forced into submission by chemistry. The result is a living soil, healthy old vines, and grapes that require almost no cellar intervention.
The old vines at Courbissac are pruned in the traditional gobelet (bush vine) style — free-standing, without wires or trellises, each vine shaped like a small tree or sculpture with multiple arms distributing sap and foliage. Brunnhilde believes this method is gentler on the vine and superior for the Mediterranean climate: it creates natural canopies that shade the fruit from the brutal sun, whereas wire-trained vines force all foliage upward, leaving the grapes exposed. The gobelet vines are also more resilient to drought and wind, and their deep, spreading root systems extract a greater diversity of minerals from the clay-limestone profile. Pruning these 70 to 90-year-old treasures is slow, meditative work — "like being a mother with many children," as Brunnhilde describes it — and the sculptural, hand-shaped form of each vine is visible in the glass: wines of individuality, transparency, and living tension.
Concrete, Whole-Bunch & the No-Oak Rule
For Brunnhilde Claux, the cellar is an extension of the vineyard's humility: a place to protect the fruit, not to transform it. The guiding principle is one of radical simplicity and anti-intervention: whole-bunch fermentation for the reds, gentle extraction, no oak, no selected yeasts, no temperature manipulation, and no additives beyond the absolute minimum of sulphur. The concrete tanks that existed on the property when she arrived are her primary vessels — she uses them because they are there, because they are neutral, and because they do not impose the flavour of wood on wines whose identity is rooted in the clay-limestone hills of the Minervois.
All red grapes are hand-harvested and fermented whole-bunch in concrete tanks. The stems provide structure, freshness, and a gentle, spicy tension that Brunnhilde believes is essential to the fluidity of the wine. She is extremely gentle with extraction — no pigeage, no pumping over, no forced maceration — allowing the juice to draw colour and tannin slowly and naturally from the skins. The maceration period varies with the vintage, but the goal is always the same: to avoid the heavy, dry tannins that ruin so many Languedoc reds. The wines are aged in the same concrete tanks, or briefly in neutral vessels, and bottled with minimal sulphur and no filtration.
The white wines are treated with the same respect for neutrality. Les Traverses Blanc — a blend of Listan (Palomino) and Terret Gris — is fermented and aged in concrete or stainless steel, capturing the low-alcohol, saline freshness of these historic varieties. Listan, originally from Andalusia, rarely exceeds 12% alcohol in this terroir, and Brunnhilde harvests it early to preserve its delicate, maritime aromatics. Terret Gris, a late-ripening variety that may prove increasingly valuable as the climate warms, provides structure and a subtle herbal depth. The orange wine — L'Orange — is made from Marsanne, Muscat, Grenache Gris, and unidentified varieties, fermented on whole bunches for nine days before pressing, then aged in concrete. It is not a copy of Georgian or Slovenian orange wine; it is Brunnhilde's own expression, gentle and unforced, with the dried fruit and spice of the skins but none of the aggressive tannin that mars so many skin-contact wines.
The most important decision in the cellar, Brunnhilde insists, is not the fermentation protocol but the harvest date. She tastes the grapes daily in the weeks before picking, looking for the moment when they are still crunchy, still fresh, still holding the acidity that will carry the wine through its life in bottle. She does not chase phenolic ripeness or maximum sugar; she chases balance — the precise intersection of fruit, acid, and mineral tension that defines a wine of nourishment rather than a wine of spectacle. The result is Minervois that is light, fresh, and honest — wines that defy the region's reputation for heaviness and prove that the Mediterranean can produce transparency when the hand that farms it is patient and the cellar that receives it is silent.
Whole-Bunch Concrete, No Oak & the Crunchy Berry
The guiding principle of Domaine de Courbissac is that the wine is made by the vineyard, spoken by the gobelet-pruned old vines of the Minervois foothills, and protected by the minimum possible intervention. The organic and biodynamic farming provides healthy, complex grapes. The gobelet pruning provides shade, resilience, and sculptural sap distribution. The hand harvest provides pristine fruit. The whole-bunch fermentation in concrete provides gentle extraction, stem-derived freshness, and absolute neutrality. The absence of oak provides a wine that tastes of Cesseras clay-limestone, not of cooperage. And the early harvest — while the berries are still crunchy — provides the low alcohol, vibrant acidity, and transparent fruit that define the estate's aliment philosophy. The cellar is not a factory; it is a quiet continuation of the hillside — a place where concrete patience, whole-bunch generosity, and the refusal to extract or flavour translate Minervois fruit into wine that is honest, nourishing, and unmistakably of its place.
Les Traverses, L'Orange & the Minervois Cuvées
Domaine de Courbissac produces a focused portfolio of red, white, orange, and rosé wines from organically and biodynamically farmed estate vineyards in the Minervois foothills. The range is built around old-vine Grenache, Carignan, and Cinsault — some over 90 years old — with supporting roles from Syrah, Mourvèdre, Terret Gris, Listan (Palomino), Marsanne, Muscat, and Grenache Gris, including unidentified varieties that remain to be classified. All wines share a common foundation: hand-harvested grapes from gobelet-pruned, free-standing vines, whole-bunch fermentation in concrete for the reds, gentle skin contact for the orange, and direct press for the whites and rosés. The result is a range that is as honest as it is humble: low in alcohol, high in drinkability, mineral, and deeply tied to the clay-limestone foothills of Cesseras — a testament to the conviction that the best Minervois is not the heaviest, but the most nourishing.
Cesseras & the Vin d'Aliment
Domaine de Courbissac is not merely a winery; it is a proof that a woman of thirty, armed with experience from Gauby and Priorat, can transform a forgotten Minervois estate into one of the most honest and drinkable producers in the Languedoc. In an era when the region is still recovering from the industrial devastation of the 1970s, 80s, and 90s — when Merlot and Cabernet Sauvignon replaced Cinsault and Terret Gris, and when dark colour and heavy oak replaced freshness and nourishment — Brunnhilde Claux has demonstrated that the same clay-limestone foothills can produce transparency, the same old vines can produce modest alcohol, and the same Grenache can produce fluidity rather than extraction — if the farming is organic, the pruning is gobelet, and the cellar is concrete.
The legacy of Domaine de Courbissac is the legacy of agricultural respect. Brunnhilde does not enter her vineyards to dominate them; she enters them to observe, to prune like a sculptor, to spray nettles rather than copper, and to accept that some years the mildew will win. The old vines — 90-year-old Grenache, 70-year-old Carignan, 70-year-old Cinsault — are not treated as commodities but as patrimony, as gifts from the past that demand patience and humility. The unidentified varieties are not ripped out but tended with maternal curiosity, awaiting the ampelographer who will one day name them. And the Romanesque chapel next to the domaine is not a tourist attraction but a spiritual anchor, a reminder that wine has been made here for centuries, and that the best wines are those that serve the table rather than the trophy cabinet.
The future of the estate is tied to the future of the Minervois and the old vines that Brunnhilde continues to sculpt by hand. As the 90-year-old Grenache accumulates another decade of gobelet wisdom, as the Terret Gris proves its value in a warming climate, and as the orange wine finds its audience among drinkers seeking authenticity rather than fashion, Domaine de Courbissac remains what Brunnhilde has always intended it to be: a farm that makes vin d'aliment — wines of nourishment, wines of the table, wines that are drunk with food and friends rather than collected and rated. The story of Domaine de Courbissac is the story of a woman who looked at an abandoned Languedoc estate and saw not a ruin, but a chapel — and who proved that the best bottle from Minervois is the one that needs no explanation, only a glass, a meal, and the patience to let the gobelet speak.
"These vines, they're our patrimony. They're a true gift. It's almost unimaginable! They are amazing. Free standing vines, without wire... to be pruning these 80-year-old treasures, well... these are very special moments."
— Brunnhilde Claux