For Whom the Bell Tolls: Clos du Clocher, 1976 – 2020
They talked, laughed, poured wine, stretched out their legs, and drank the clean, sweet liquid from the greasy, sawdust-covered glasses.
– For Whom the Bell Tolls (1940), Ernest Hemingway
There is no suggestion that Hemingway, perhaps better associated with Paris, Spain and Cuba than with Corrèze, ever passed through this isolated region in south-west France, but if he had I think he would have felt at home here. Long regarded as one of France’s most charming and admired regions, it is rich in historic villages, often nestled in narrow wooded valleys, or perched on rocky outcrops on the edge of high plateaus, looking down into the Gorges de la Dordogne. At least half a dozen of these villages are regularly ranked among France’s most beautiful, among them Collognes-la-Rouge, a network of medieval cobbled streets, castle and fortified towers built from red sandstone, and Beaulieu-sur-Dordogne, with its ancient abbey and homely properties which sit aside a river most of us probably associate more with Bordeaux than with this corner of France.
Part of the region’s appeal is that it remains largely undeveloped, and therefore unspoilt. Its terrain, a high craggy plateau scarred by deep valleys, has deterred the builders of railways and roads from venturing here, isolating it from the 20th-century tourism which so often led to whitewashed modernism. Today this isolation is worth celebrating; in the 19th century, however, it hung round the region’s neck like a noose.
Two centuries ago Corrèze was a byword for impoverished subsistence living, a densely inhabited region of people who struggled to survive. Meanwhile the rest of the country was enjoying a post-Revolutionary golden age, a time when railways began to connect one city to another, and Paris underwent a breathtaking modernisation under the direction of Napoleon III (1808 – 1873); alleys were widened to create leafy boulevards, and squalid neighbourhoods were demolished to make way for elegant apartment buildings.
The bright lights beckoned, and any Corrèzian with a skill – masons, carpenters, sculptors and the like – left for Paris, Bordeaux and France’s other big cities; in this 19th-century exodus the population of Corrèze declined by 150,000. Among the emigrants were the Moueix ancestors, who first headed to Paris before moving to Bordeaux, and – as you will have noticed if you read my recent twenty-vintage vertical from Domaine de la Noblaie – the Manzagol family also originated from here.
As did, as it happens, the Audy family, who landed in Libourne, and to whom we owe the existence of Clos du Clocher. And with the arrival of the 2024 vintage, the family celebrate one hundred years since its creation. In this report I explore the history of the estate though its wines, in the company of Jean-Baptiste Bourotte (pictured above).
Please log in to continue reading: