Appears in
Oxford Companion to Wine

By Jancis Robinson

Published 2006

  • About

mas, southern French term for a domaine.

The most famous wine-producing mas is Mas de Daumas Gassac, established by outsiders to the world of wine just south east of montpeyroux in the Languedoc in the 1970s. Aimé Guibert was the first to prove that a French non-appellation wine, labelled merely vin de pays de l’Hérault, can be an extremely serious, long-living red which can fetch the same sort of prices as a Bordeaux classed growth. Mas de Daumas Gassac also makes some rosé and some ambitious white, from a blend of unusual but trend-setting grape varieties including viognier, petit manseng, petit courbu, petite arvine, amigne, and neheleschol.