The Culinary Passport - S3 EP2: Paul Gordon - Domaine la Sarabande, France
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Paul Gordon: Domaine la Sarabande wines
Originally from Sydney winemaker Paul Gordon has lived in the South of France since 2008 where he and his wife Isla, own and run Domaine La Sarabande, a boutique winery in the Faugères appellation near the commune of Laurens in the Occitanie region.
Paul’s wine journey began when he was about 20 years old in London where he first developed an interest working in the bar of a fashionable restaurant.
“Because I wasn’t a very good barman I was chucked in the bar downstairs to serve wine to the waiters and after a while the boss there decided I was quite good at differentiating between wines and I was put in charge of the cellar”, he said.
“So there I was tasting my way through some fantastic French wines because we were pouring everything by the glass.
“ I fell in love with the wine industry through that”.
Paul and his wife Isla during the harvest or “Vendange”
After returning to Australia to work in a Sydney wine store he did a wine making course at the Charles Sturt University in Wagga Wagga in NSW and the world of wine really opened up.
After completing his first harvest in the Hunter Valley he did a second in Oregon in the United Sates, and then another in the Yarra Valley in Victoria.
Fly-in wine making was next and Paul completed harvests in France and Spain.
“It was a great way to see the different techniques of making wine and I was fascinated by the way they were doing it in Europe which was much more hands on and vineyard focussed.”
After this New Zealand beckoned where Paul lived for several years during which time he met his wife Isla who was backpacking from her home in Ireland.
Wanting to start a family they decided to move closer to Isla’s home, and France was again on the radar.
They began looking for vineyards to rent and discovered the Occitanie region.
This area was created in 2016 as part of broader territorial reform which reduced the number of regions from 22 to 13, and combined Languedoc-Roussillon and Midi-Pyrénées.
The Languedoc area produces a third France’s wine output, or around three billion bottles annually, which is more than the combined output of the famous northern Bordeaux region, and Australia, combined.
Around 40 thousand of those come from Domaine La Sarabande.
All hand picked and 100 per cent organic, Paul and Isla make several varieties from their 10.5 hectares of grapes with single vineyard, single variety reds, the top of their range.
From a rented house they’ve now built their own winery with plans approved for a house.
Although they export to several countries, including Australia, the longer term plan is to focus on wine tourism similar to that seen in the Hunter Valley, the Yarra Valley in Victoria, the Barossa Vally in South Australia and Margaret River in WA.
“We want to people to come and have a cellar door experience like they get at an Australian winery”, said Paul
“We will have some accomodation and we also want to generate more direct sales which is the model we think will be best for us”.
