More Paysan Than Vigneron: Fontedicto
An interview with Fontedicto vigneron Bernard Bellahsen, the pioneer, successively, of horse-plowing, organics, biodynamics, and unsulfited vinification in the Languedoc.
The kindly, militant uncle of Languedoc natural wine, Bernard Bellahsen is a figure of singular influence in natural viticulture, having pioneered organics, horse-plowing, and biodynamics in the south of France - all before ever beginning to make wine.
From the late-1970s until moving to the outskirts of the village of Caux in 1994, Bellahsen produced what was, presumably, really excellent grape juice in the plains west of Béziers.
In Caux, encouraged by the needs of his growing family as well as the superior local terroir, he began vinifying his crop under the name Fontedicto, and soon earned a reputation for divisive, intensely structured, immortal natural red wines (as well as a rare, manna-like white from terret). Haters call Fontedicto wines bretty and volatile. Far-sighted tasters know these characteristics can transform, with long bottle age, to create profiles of extraordinary beauty: accords of fine leathers, aged steak, and garnet-toned fruit. Among fellow vignerons, Bellahsen is known equally for his strident rigor in farming, insisting, famously, on plowing both directions in his gobelet-trained vineyards.
Quick Facts:
French-Tunisian-Italian by birth, Bernard Bellahsen began farming vines in 1977, working organically from the start, producing grape juice west of Béziers.
In 1995, he and his wife Cécile moved to Fontarèche, where they began producing wine. The estate was initially known as Domaine de Fontarèche, but the couple changed the name to Fontedicto after a dispute with an existing estate called Fontarèche.
At its height, the Bellahsens’ estate comprised 5ha. Today the couple farm just 1.5ha of carignan and syrah on limestone and basalt soils. Yields are generally between 15-20 HL/ha.
Vinification occurs in a cellar of the Bellahsen’s own construction, insulated with cork. Red grapes are destemmed and ferment in steel tank. Macerations and fermentation often last many months, since he tends to press when sugars are done.
Cuvées include the flagship red blend “Promise,” “Coulisses,” which is what Bellahsen calls the same wine when he feels the vintage isn’t quite up to the standard of “Promise,” and “Pirouette,” a pure carignan cuvée. There was also a white wine from terret, “Claire de Terre”; 2010 was the last vintage produced.
BERNARD BELLAHSEN: AN INTERVIEW
The following interview was conducted in January 2019. It has been condensed and edited for clarity.
How did you become a vigneron?
I was born in Tunisia. My father was born Tunisian and got French nationality at age eighteen. My mother was Italian and became French when she married my father. But she’d gone to school in Italy. The family was a religious mix, too, because my father was Jewish and my mother was Catholic, in a Muslim country. I was ten years old when I arrived in France with my parents and my brothers. I did studies in Montpellier that didn’t really suit me. So in 1977 I left, and I started taking an interest in vines.
I started working vines seriouly. I was in the plains, forty kilometers from here, between Béziers and Narbonne. I was in a place where everyone brought their grapes to the cave cooperative. Almost no one made wine.
I stayed two years in the cave coopative, but I was scandalized by what they did with the grapes I brought them. The grape, for me, is an extraordinary fruit. And I wanted it to benefit people for a longer time. Especially children. So I thought to make grape juice. I didn’t have children then.
What made you sensitive to organic agriculture?
I never worked with chemicals. I immediately started in organics. I don’t know why. My origins, maybe. All these confluences. I don’t know what it is to work with chemicals.
First I was given to understand that I was farming organically. And then I felt like working with a horse. So in 1980, I converted a show horse to a plow horse. And then I realized that I’d done everything possible to make myself unloved in the village.
I was organic, and they didn’t know what that was. And I made grape juice, which was a thing for women and kids. And I worked with a horse, and they’d abandoned that years ago. The last horse in the area had been in 1974.
What prompted you to move to Caux?
It was when I met Cécile and we started to have children. I had been getting by with 1.5ha. The neighbors didn’t accept my work at all, and I didn’t really care. But I told myself I needed more income to feed my family. And then I realized that I was not so well-liked in the area.
We looked for a place in Faugères first. Then we found here. We continued to make a bit of grape juice, because we had clientele for grape juice, but quickly we switched to wine, because the place is more suited to it. Before, I was in the plains, where the vineyards produced a lot and weren’t interesting for wine.
Here it was interesting to make wine, and less interesting for grape juice. So we adapted. We’re always able to adapt ourselves. The thing is to adapt oneself to a place.
What’s behind the name Fontedicto?
Fontarèche is the name of the place. It was a Roman site. Romans, as soon as there was a water source, they moved in. So it was occupied by Romans. And the first name that the romans gave it was Fonte Edicto, meaning, “a fountain one hears.” It was a strong fountain, you heard it coming. It’s on our neighbor’s property, so we took the original name. It means the same thing, because Fontarèche is the Occitan translation of Fonte Edicto.
There wasn’t much here when we arrived. It was a totally banal production. There was no cellar, since the old owner was in the cave coop. The vineyards were like a desert. The guy herbicided - even the paths were herbicided. It was, quote-unquote, “clean.”
Now there’s an infinity of grass. It’s proof that the soil lives. It adapts to each place. Each square centimeter. The soil took on life again, vegetable and organic material.
What features define the terroir at Fontedicto?
We’re situated high up, 150m altitude, and there’s a wood to the north. Generally speaking, in the south, a northerly orientation is interesting. And since the wood is there, we have shadow on the vines until 9am.
As for the soil, we’re on a limestone rock, with very little arable earth, just 20cm. It’s tertiary, miocene limestone. It was oysters, so you have bits everywhere. It’s relatively friable on the surface and v hard at the depths. And the dome you see over there is an ancient volcano. So there’s basalt. This volcano inundated a whole area near Nizas.
It’s automatically a place that has low yields, and it has the characteristics that give organoleptic maturity the time to arrive, relative to sugars. In the beginning we had carignan, syrah, grenache, cinsault, aramon, and terret bourret. Now we don’t have much left of all that. Because we had very, very old vines.
I understand you no longer produce terret.
Everyone in the Languedoc decried terret because in the plains they did yields of 150hl/ha. But we had a high-sited parcel that we produced 6hl/ha with. When I arrived here people said, “Oh, you have terret? Put it in the red and don’t tell anyone.”
That intrigued me, frankly. And you shouldn’t tell me things like that that because, necessarily, I did the opposite. For two years I struggled a bit in vinification. I didn’t understand much.
But after one year, I discovered that, contrary to what’s said about it, it’s an extraordinary grape variety, with finesse and elegance. I presented it without saying what it was at ViniSud. It was a 1997 that I presented in 2000. And people were totally lost, because there was natural freshness and acidity, with a big structure, and progressive aromatics. Then it worked every year. The last vintage was in 2010. I think it’s proof that, where there’s a lot of limestone, it’s a grape that’s truly well-adapted.
Because it’s from the Languedoc, and it was selected through habit and observation. There’s also the the northerly exposition. Nowadays there are many young vignerons who replant terret. But I don’t think they’ve all understood that you can’t plant it just anywhere. If you plant it in the plains, you make the same old error.
Unfortunately, in the Languedoc there isn’t the culture you’ll find in Burgundy, Bordeaux, or Alsace, places where where there is a love for both the earth and the wine, even a pride almost.
What appealed to you about working with horses ?
When I was a boy in Tunisia, we had animals, chickens and things like that.
The horse made me understand so many things, in the whole ensemble of things. You understand that you don’t have the right to do whatever you want. The limited force of a horse prevents you from doing foolish things. Why? Because if the earth wants let itself be plowed, it’s the right time.
That’s why horse plowing is interesting. Now it’s a story of back labels, if you know what I mean. People don’t see the most important thing about horse-plowing. The agronomic benefit is much bigger than the commercial benefit. Nowadays horse-plowing translates often to a commercial benefit. And it comprises part of the data that falsifies wine appreciation.
And, at the same time as I began working with horse, I discovered biodynamics. The idea is to speak of a farm. We live on it, and we have the animals to do polyculture elevage. Rather than farming only vines to make wine. When you do a bit of everything, it helps to understand and respect things, and place oneself on a human scale. We consider ourselves more paysan than vigneron. Because to be a vigneron is just one of the aspects of paysannerie.
FIN
Cécile et Bernard Bellahsen
Fontarèche
34720 CAUX
FURTHER READING
A 2021 report on Bellahsen’s neighbor, the British expat vigneron Joe Jefferies.
A 2021 report on Bellahsen’s fellow horse-plowing enthusiast, Adissan vigneron Rémi Poujol.