Languedoc

Happy and contented are the adjectives that spring to mind when one meets Olivier Jullien.

In 1984 Olivier Jullien was still studying when he bought a third of an hectare of vines in the village of Jonquières, North-West of Montpellier, where he was born. He wasn’t even 20 years old.  The previous year he had worked as a stagiaire at the cooperative nearby and he had saved the money he earned. 

The parcel of vines was abandoned, and a stone’s throw away from his father’s vineyards. His intention wasn't to become a vigneron. However, he liked the fact that he would have a personal bond with the earth. Olivier cleaned up his parcel of land and planted Chenin simply because he did a few trials of vinification from old Chenin that he had found in the area. And he planted Viognier because while travelling with college students he fell in love with the wines of Condrieu. 

Jullien’s father paradoxically was a winegrower and sold his grapes to the cooperative. He told his son about another abandoned vineyard in the vicinity that was for sale. Unable to afford it, Olivier met the owner and both agreed on a rent.  Suddenly, Olivier Jullien was in charge of a 3-hectare parcel including a mas (a little stone house), along with a spring. The vineyard was in a very poor state and planted with old Carignan and young Cinsault. There was so much grass that one could hardly see the vines.  That year in 1985, between April and September, Olivier had to graduate in viticulture and winemaking in Montpellier, build his cellar and buy second hand equipment in order to make wine.  And… he produced his first vintage. 

Nowadays, Olivier Jullien’s18-hectare vineyard is fragmented between many different plots planted in an incredible geographical disparity. For the last thirty years Jullien has been continuously farming with immense respect for biodiversity, although he gave up organic and biodynamic certification in other to remain free spirited in his intellectual approach to farming and winemaking. 

Mas Jullien is in fact a team of wonderful people who accompany Olivier along the way. There is Marie, his aunt whom he calls ‘the beating heart of the domaine’. There are Fred, Bernard, Yoann and his nephew Nicolas ‘the fussy guy’.

A true pioneer, a visionary leader, a humble man, a lover of nature, and a poet, Olivier has become the symbol of the great Languedoc wines. This tireless adventurer gathers the admiration of his peers more than any other vigneron in that region and he embodies the rebirth of rigorous viticulture and quality wines. 

Olivier Jullien is justifiably renowned for his wines that are profound, pure, fresh, complete and balanced with incredible ageing potential. They are utterly magical. His magnificent Mas Jullien is definitely a contender for Languedoc first-growth status.


Profile © Françoise and Seán Gilley

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