Mary Taylor Olivier Gessler Cotes du Gascogne

Gascogny, the mythical land of D’Artagnan that was once the epicenter of western Roman Gaul (2nd century), and later English held, is a beautiful part of the French Southwest – speckled with medieval hilltop towns. Gascogny had once 100,000 hectares of vines and now has just 15,000 hectares. Bordering the enormous Landes pine forest and wedged between the Atlantic and the Pyreneés, the vines breathe pure air and oceanic winds mixed with a warm foehn wind from the Saharan Desert. IGP Côtes de Gascogne shares the same land surface as Armagnac. Of the 3 subzones, our domaine is deeply in the Bas-Armagnac. The soils here are clay and sand, more specifically red sable and alluvial subsoil.

Having immigrated from Switzerland, the Gessler family settled here in 1928. We are now on the 4th generation – operating a robust family business with 20 full time employees. This is one of the more thoughtfully farmed properties – registered HVE 3 and in organic conversion. They tend to indigenous varietals with which dry white and red wines along with Armagnac are made.

Colombard is the offspring of Chenin blanc and Gouais blanc. This makes the grape the sibling of the Armagnac Meslier Saint-François and the nearly extinct Cognac grape Balzac blanc. Tart and fruity Ugni Blanc is also known as Trebbiano. Gros Manseng is a dry varietal found in Jurançon wines.