Les Clos d’Elis
– Hérault valley, France
Rarely do we come across wines so approachable, yet with a character as pronounced as Elisabeth her wines. These are wines with emotion.
Located on a wooded hillside just outside the village of Gignac in the Hérault valley, Les Clos d’Elis is the project of Elisabeth Jacquier, who founded her own estate after a career in the wine trade. A trained oenologist with a DNO and a DESS in Wine Law, Elisabeth spent years working with négociants in southern France before deciding to make wine herself.
Her first vineyard was planted in 2012 in Saint-Saturnin, with Grenache Blanc and Cinsault. Over the following years, she added small parcels in Arboras and Aniane, including old-vine Grenache Noir and Carignan (some planted in 1949), as well as Cinsault, Syrah, Mourvèdre, and Viognier.
In 2018, she moved production to the restored farmhouse of Mas de Boissonnade, where she built a new cellar and received her first harvest there the same year. Today, she cultivates around five hectares of vines.
The estate has been certified organic since 2017, and Elisabeth practices what she calls “gentle viticulture”: minimal treatments, plant decoctions, and occasional biodynamic preparations. Work under the vines is done by horse. Herbal teas of horsetail and whey from a local farm are used to strengthen the plants and support natural defenses.
In the cellar, winemaking is as straightforward: no additives, no filtration, and
fermentations with indigenous yeasts, and since 2019, all wines are made without added sulphites. The wines, bottled under the labels Les Clos d’Elis and Boissonnade, are lively, easy-drinking, and expressive of their grape varieties and vintages. The vines grow on clay-limestone terraces with excellent drainage, under a Mediterranean climate influenced by the cooling winds from the Larzac plateau, which help maintain balance and freshness in the wines.
