Les Chemins de Bassac L'Incandescente 2024

Les Chemins de Bassac is a 20-hectare estate in the village of Puimisson in the western Languedoc, established in the late nineteenth century as the principal winemaking operation of the village. The estate takes its name from the hamlet of Bassac, where most of the vineyards are located — "chemins de Bassac" meaning "roads to Bassac." The property has practised organic farming for over 30 years and converted to full biodynamics under Demeter certification from 2017 onward.

The current owners are Bruno Trigueiro and his wife Thama, both former architects from São Paulo, Brazil. The couple arrived in Puimisson in 2016 after Bruno's severe migraines led him, with the guidance of an anthroposophical doctor, to reconsider a diet and lifestyle built around industrialised produce. A healthier, more land-connected way of living pointed him toward wine — specifically toward a certified organic estate of the right scale, in a region open to new approaches. "Languedoc is way more dynamic, open to new things," Bruno has explained. After two years of transition and learning from the previous owners, Bruno and Thama took complete control in 2019, at which point they also stopped using any oenological additives in the cellar beyond a light sulfur addition at bottling.

Their immediate neighbour across the road is Jean-François Coutelou, a long-standing pioneer of natural winemaking in the area, whose presence and example have been a resource as Bruno has developed his own approach. In the cellar, Bruno uses wild yeast fermentation exclusively, concrete vats for maceration, and gravity bottling according to the biodynamic lunar calendar. The wine labels use the cyanotype photographic technique — natural materials from the vineyards placed on light-sensitive paper — created by their friend and collaborator, the artist and designer Amélie Cordier.

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Puimisson is a small village of approximately 1,000 residents in the western Languedoc, situated in the Hérault department around 12 kilometres north of Béziers and roughly 30 kilometres from the Mediterranean coast. The surrounding landscape is one of rolling hillsides planted with vines, olive trees, oak, and cypress, punctuated by garrigue scrubland — the classic Mediterranean paysage of the lower Languedoc interior. Viticulture here falls within the broad Côtes de Thongue IGP zone, which extends across the plain south of the Massif Central foothills.

The soils around Puimisson are predominantly limestone and clay, with a significant presence of ancient Quaternary alluvial terraces — deposits laid down over millions of years by rivers draining from the Massif Central toward the Mediterranean plain. These well-drained, mineral-rich formations sit at approximately 100 metres above sea level, a modest elevation that nonetheless provides some relief from the intense Mediterranean heat. The climate is warm and dry, with long sunny summers, consistent southerly winds from the coast that moderate temperatures, and most annual rainfall concentrated in autumn and spring.

The Languedoc as a whole has undergone a sustained shift toward quality-driven, independent winemaking since the 1990s, with the region now home to some of France's most dynamic natural wine producers. The western part of the Languedoc, around Béziers and the Hérault river valley, has been particularly active in this renewal. Notable figures in the area include Jean-François Coutelou, who farms neighbouring land to Chemins de Bassac in Puimisson and has been a reference point for low-intervention winemaking in the region for decades. The Côtes de Thongue IGP, which covers the area, permits a wide range of grape varieties — including the Syrah, Pinot Noir, Mourvèdre, and Roussanne that Les Chemins de Bassac works with — giving producers the flexibility to farm and vinify outside the constraints of the stricter AOC system.