Grange des Pères v Daumas Gassac

At one stage in French wine history, around the turn of the last century, the little town of Aniane in the hills north west of Montpellier was world-famous. It was here that the then-iconic Calfornia wine producer Robert Mondavi was lined up in opposition to another winemaking incomer. Aimé Guibert had arrived in Aniane much earlier and had put it on the wine map via the exceptional quality of the Cabernet-based red made on the estate he created in the 1970s, Mas de Daumas Gassac.

As portrayed in the film Mondovino, Guibert railed against globalisation and managed to mount...