FINE COMPOSITION TEXT BY ANDREW JEFFORD FINE COMPOSITION ROB DOUGAN: In the vinyards PHOTO CREDIT: STUART HALL of La Pèira After a successful career in music, Rob Dougan “ ven if this all goes down in to go off and swan around in Bordeaux, has turned his attention to the grape and with flames, we can hold up our hands I think that’s an incredibly precious a formidable winemaker in his corner, he’s Eand say, we’ve tested a hectare thing. We did it, we tested it, it’s on the in the Languedoc under the conditions books, and that could lead somewhere.” produced some of the best Languedoc wines you need to see if it produces fine wine, The speaker is the Languedoc’s most of the last decade. and we had a result and you can taste improbable wine personality: London- this result and it’s a start. Someone else based émigré, Australian music composer can then come along and carry on. Even and songwriter Rob Dougan. Perhaps, if I end up driving a taxi and Jérémie has though, I should start at the beginning. FINE COMPOSITION Excerpted from full article in Gourmet Traveller Wine Oct 2013 | 2 Dougan was born in 1969 in Melbourne, himself in disentangling the details, but the eldest of five siblings; his father is success as a songwriter came in 1995 a pharmacologist and his mother an with a single called Clubbed to Death, artist. He grew up in and he released an album the Sydney suburb of (called Furious Angels) Lindfield. He wanted in the UK in 2002 and to be a Shakespearean worldwide in 2003. His actor, but was thrown music has been used out of Sydney’s National in films (such as The Institute of Dramatic Art Matrix in 1999) and by after two years “because I was behaving advertisers (Audi, Toyota, Lincoln). badly and drinking too much” and I knew none of this when a rather fetched up washing dishes in London battered box of samples of Languedoc in 1990. wines was delivered to me in the UK “A ‘slave’s slave’, Orwell called in 2007. After I tried them I thought it. I tried to do a little music in they were the best unsolicited samples the evening.” Why not acting? I’d ever been sent. I still think that. “I didn’t have the confidence. There They are gorgeous wines. Rob Dougan wasn’t a huge demand in London either turned out to be behind them, though for an Australian to act in Shakespeare.” the domaine name on the label was the Something has happened to his elocution, tongue-tangling La Pèira en Damaisèla. though: the Australian accent is gone, Not just Dougan, of course. His wife to be replaced by Karine is a French- middle-class London “Enigmatic and Chinese who grew English. Perhaps thin-skinned; up in Montpellier, actors are more though she now works prone than most to self-demeaning and as a media lawyer in accent loss. understated but London. “We’d been It’s difficult to get fiercely proud.” to the Languedoc Dougan to tell a story plainly. He’s on holiday,” Dougan told me. So why intelligent, cultured, enigmatic and create a wine estate? “The people thin-skinned; self-demeaning and and the region had been wronged, understated but fiercely proud too – an and it’s always nice to right wrongs.” intriguing but difficult mix. I’ve had So you bought that land to right a KEEPING FAITH: History has a strong more luck on Wikipedia than via Dougan historical wrong? “No, I thought we’d do PHOTO CREDIT: GEORGES SOUCHE influence at La Pèira 3 | Excerpted from full article in Gourmet Traveller Wine Oct 2013 FINE COMPOSITION | 4 FINE COMPOSITION INTIUTIVE REASON: The gravels at this Languedoc site are almost Bordeaux-like PHOTO CREDIT: GEORGES SOUCHE well. But there was a slight element of and Karine purchased are fine terroir: for something that would be exciting,” had made interesting discoveries. The juvenile petulance. It seemed like quite they lie close to one another on a terrace remembers Dougan, “not in a scientific or Roman polymath Pliny the Elder cited two an easy thing to do. I didn’t realise of beautifully drained glacial gravels materialistic or verifiable way, but more regions of Gaul as producing outstanding how life-changingly complicated it was wine. One being Vienne (in the Northern going to be.” They acquired their first “ It’s just possible (though you can’t say more) Rhône) for red wines, and the other the vineyards in the winter of 2004. Did you that high-quality wine was made hereabouts in Béziers hinterland for whites. The latter know anything about wine? “No, but I citation seems puzzling – though one of knew about drinking.” At this point, you Roman times. This is not a typically rocky, austere Languedoc’s oldest AOCs is the white- may well be thinking that this enterprise Languedoc hill site; the deep, filtering gravels are wine Clairette du Languedoc [1948] and should be a flop. It has though, created more sumptuous and Bordeaux-like.” the clairette vine itself has a long history some of the most remarkable Languedoc in the area. Parts of the La Pèira land lie wines of the last decade. How? First in the Terrasses du Larzac. That was, an intuitive way.” He has subsequently in the Clairette du Languedoc zone, as of all, the two parcels of land that Rob perhaps, lucky. “I was just looking researched the site in some depth and do the remains of two Roman wineries. 5 | FINE COMPOSITION Excerpted from full article in Gourmet Traveller Wine Oct 2013 | 6 It’s just possible (though you can’t say more) “ The unusual thing about Rob Dougan is that that high-quality wine was made hereabouts in Roman times. This is not a typically he doesn’t think like most Languedoc domaine rocky, austere Languedoc hill site; the deep, owners. He is madder or more innocent.” filtering gravels are more sumptuous and Bordeaux-like. Reason number two it’s a success are the collaborators Dougan chose, in particular the talented young wine-maker Jérémie Depierre. Depierre had worked in Sauternes (with Guiraud), and Médoc (with Margaux), Alsace (with Meyer-Fonné and others). Dougan also chose consultant Claude Gros. Gros isn’t a homogenising wand-weaver. A little earlier this year, I tasted a range of the wines from domaines to which he consults. It was obvious that each owner has different levels of ambitions and a different frame of economic possibilities. They were all competent, but varied greatly along the scale of simplicity to complexity. The unusual thing about Rob Dougan, and this, surely, is reason number three, is that he doesn’t think like most Languedoc domaine owners. He is madder or more innocent. “I’m just delighted to discover what’s in the net at the end of a day’s fishing. Do wonderful work in the vineyard, harvest at a sensible time – I don’t think these are crazy things – then see what LARZAC PIEDMONT: we have.” From La Pèira the first foothills The La Pèira terraces may be Bordeaux-like, PHOTO CREDIT: GEORGES SOUCHE of the Larzac. but there is a big difference between the Languedoc and Bordeaux, as Christian Seely of AXA Millésimes (which owns both Pichon- Baron in Pauillac and Mas Belles Eaux 7 | Excerpted from full article in Gourmet Traveller Wine Oct 2013 FINE COMPOSITION | 8 near Pézenas) once told me: Bordeaux With Claude Gros and Karine, they have yields don’t work here. Quality in the created great wines, the kind of wines Languedoc demands lower yields. that can jolt consumers’ perceptions of Indeed the yield for the debut 2005 the Languedoc and can rival the best vintage of La Pèira was a pitiful nine from Bordeaux, and the Rhône. Maybe, hl/ha. It’s come up a little since, but given time, they might even right a even so, the overall yields for the whole historical wrong. domaine are still barely more than 20 hl/ Tasting La Pèira ha (traditional Languedoc farmers would regard this as unhinged. For them, good The domaine produces four red wines, terroir was productive terroir.) and one white. The white, Deusyls, is at present roussanne and viognier with a dash “The thing must be to create something of marsanne, though (in a nod to history) excellent,” insists Dougan, “otherwise Dougan has just planted clairette and the you are really wasting time. But when great, though unheralded, grenache blanc. you create something excellent, it’s very “They have created great wines, the kind of wines that can jolt consumers’ perceptions of the Languedoc and can rival the best from Bordeaux, and the Rhône. Maybe, given time, they might even right a historical wrong.” hard to work out a balance sheet behind The simplest of the reds is Les Obriers, that. For me, it has taken too much to The domain producesa cinsault four red wines,- carignan and one white.blend, The whilewhite, date, which is something youDeusyls, just iscan’t at present roussanne and viognier with a dash of the grand vin (in a Bordeaux sense) is sustain. All the wines sell marsanne,well, but thoughwe (in a nod to history) Dougan has just planted clairette and the great,La Pèira, though a selection unheralded, of thegrenache best syrah blanc. with don’t make much and our costs are high. a little old-vine Grenache. There is also The fact that a lot of the Theclassic simplest wine of the reds is Les Obriers, a cinsault - carignan blend, while the granda second vin (in wine a Bordeaux called sense) Las Flors, is La Pèira, which a is regions are in areas where you can get a selection of the bestnot syrah only withthe most a little complex old-vine blend Grenache.