The Big Interview: Jean-Claude Mas

Celebrating 25 years since the birth of Domaines Paul Mas, founder and winemaker Jean-Claude Mas is heralding a new future for the Languedoc. Eloise Feilden investigates.

JEAN-CLAUDE MAS seems happiest rambling around vineyards on his buggy, one hand on the wheel and the other typing out an email on his phone. In two days spent on his estate – where he has just returned following a trip to Japan, via New York and Canada – his phone is rarely silent, seeming to ring continuously with calls from members of both his team and his family. Indeed, producing 25 million bottles a year, with 950 hectares of vineyards to manage, Mas is nothing if not a busy man. Having heard that Mas is a fan of fast cars, the mud-splashed four-seater vineyard buggy parked next to his Audi hybrid comes as something of a surprise, though perhaps it shouldn’t, considering his background. Wine is in his blood – Mas meaning ‘estate’ in the local dialect – and the winemaker comes from four generations of vineyard owners, beginning with his great-grandfather, Auguste Mas, who bought a 9ha plot in the Mas de Bicq, near Montagnac, in 1892. Jean-Claude himself inherited some 35ha of vineyards from his father in 1987, and decided to build on his heritage, becoming the first in his family to produce wine with the launch of Domaines Paul Mas in 2000. Jouncing up and down in the passenger seat beside him, I get the feeling that Mas’ dune buggy tours of the vineyards are more than just a sight-seeing excursion; this is a man who wants to make clear that his journey in wine began in the vineyard, not the winery. “I’m not at all from a technical background,” he says, and racing through the puddled paths and rolling hills of the surrounding vineyards is one way to illustrate this point to any urbanite journalist in tow. “I didn’t inherit any story in wine. I inherited a story in understanding vineyards and nature from my father, and then I discovered the world of wine from the consumer standpoint.”

NEW WORLD ATTITUDE

The consumer standpoint is central to Mas’ winemaking – and marketing – approach. “Old World wines with New World attitude” is the Mas mantra, and he takes very little inspiration from his home country. “France is a very conservative country in any sense, and when it comes to wine they are even more conservative. People are really opinionated: [they think] Bordeaux is better than Burgundy; Burgundy is better than the Loire. They are not open to the world,” he says. Mas sees this as an Old World problem, explaining: “Historically, the Old World has been very producer-focused; wine being one of those obscure things where you have to be initiated.” This, he says, has always made it “a little bit frightening for people to talk about wine”. In contrast, “the idea of making it more approachable is what the New World has brought to the world of wine”, he explains, adding: “The Old World is about the tradition of producing, understanding and making wine. The New World is more about understanding the consumer, trying to make the wine more appealing to consumers, but not treating them like ‘if you don’t like this wine it’s because you don’t know about wine’.” Mas has taken after the New World in this sense and, as a result, the domestic market has never been the primary focus for Domaines Paul Mas. “Trying to sell in France is, I always say, like trying to sell a hamburger to Americans,” he says. “There’s too much competition.”

Selling wine in France is “very costly”, he complains. Added to this, “the Languedoc doesn’t have such a good image in France”. “It ended up being so complicated and so expensive that going to the French market was, for me, a no-go.” Instead, the success of Domaines Paul Mas began in Japan. “Without Japan I wouldn’t exist,” Mas says, explaining that his strategy for marketing wine is “best expressed” in this market, which drives sales of both value-for-money wines and top-end cuvées. Since its founding, Domaines Paul Mas has expanded into 80 countries worldwide and, despite Mas’s frustration towards his fellow countrymen, France is among the top five markets for his wines today alongside the UK, Netherlands, Canada and the US. Mas also has his sights set on markets in Africa. “Africa is one of the only markets in the world with growing demand,” he says. “China and Japan – all the traditional markets – are down.”

Domaines Paul Mas is available in Nigeria, Côte d’Ivoire, Morocco and Kenya, and the winemaker is keeping an eye on growing demand in the continent. His issue in Africa, as elsewhere, is with the Languedoc’s lacklustre reputation. “All the emerging markets go first to big names and big appellations. They will go to Burgundy, to some top premium Italians, to Champagne. We don’t yet have the image to be top of the list for the demand,” he says. “At this point we’re at the early stage of developing any kind of image,” he says of the winery, and the wider Languedoc region, when it comes to the world stage. But he has high expectations for the coming years. I ask him over dinner: where will you be in 10 years? “I will be the most famous winemaker in the world,” he laughs. Mas may be joking, yet his plans are anything but modest. His aim is to drive a “major revolution” for the Languedoc as a whole, educating consumers on why its diversity equates to quality. Mas wants consumers “not to consider the Languedoc as one region, but as a country”. “Which other area in the world can produce 50 grape varieties in very good conditions? I can make you a great Riesling; I can make a great Chardonnay; I can make a great Grenache Blanc; I can make a great Viognier. But within that massive approach, you need to create islands of rarity for ultra-premium wines.”

INTERNATIONAL ACCLAIM

Rare bright spots have already appeared, with the likes of Limoux and Picpoul de Pinet garnering international acclaim. The trick is to make these pockets of the Languedoc into “more of a seller market”, echoing the success of a region like Burgundy, where “you have less production than demand”. The Languedoc has historically had success making “mass-production wines that enable people to make a living”. In this sense, it is antithetical to the story of France’s classic fine wine regions: “Burgundy and Bordeaux have become fine wines because they couldn’t produce mass-production wines to make money and to serve high-demanding markets,” Mas explains. “Here, [wine producers] at the beginning of the century didn’t care about making fine wine, and were making much more money than Bordeaux”. This may have been the reality in the past, and part of the reason behind the Languedoc’s reputation for value-formoney cuvées, but Mas is driving a new era for France’s southern coast. “Today, we adapt to the market. We don’t have the name, but we have the chance to be a region with huge potential for top-end production,” he says. His answer to top-end wines from the Languedoc? Clos Astelia. Named after his four daughters – Elisa, Astrid, Apolline, Estelle – the estate located in Pézenas produces wines from 13ha of surrounding vineyards planted with Viognier, Grenache, Picpoul and Cabernet Sauvignon. Mas built the Clos Astelia winery in 2018 and now produces 40,000 bottles in total across four cuvées – a Grand Vin, a Grand Blanc, a Cabernet Sauvignon and a Chardonnay. His goal is to create the Languedoc version of a Super Tuscan. This is still a work in progress. “It takes a very long time,” Mas admits. Nonetheless, he’s confident that the quality will win out in the end. “We know they deliver. We know that when you take a good glass of Languedoc wine, especially ours, you can compete with anybody.” For now, there is a more pressing, and personal, question to answer: what of the next generation at Domaines Paul Mas? “I don’t want to ask myself the question, frankly speaking,” he says, shaking his head. With four daughters aged between seven and 25, Mas wants to put as little pressure as possible on his brood. Having studied economics and advertising at university, Mas was “not at all supposed to come back to the family business to be involved in wine”, and wants to give his daughters the same freedom to make their own choices. Mas shrugs: “I always say: if they are capable and they want to come, they will come.” For now, when it comes to the future of both the business and the region, he will have to wait and see.