As you already know, the Provence wine region is the best in France in terms of the proportion of organic vineyard area. As much as 24% of the area is organic, or under conversion to organic, which is twice as much as the French average.

So now, according to CIVP Éric Pastorino, the Côte de Provence wine region aims to be 100% organically certified in 2030 or according to the “new” (10 years old) HVE certification. HVE stands for High Environmental Value and has in recent years become an increasingly applied environmental certification in France.

But already now the first appellation in Provence is 100% organic, namely AOP Les Baux de Provence. For many years, there has only been one wine producer, Mas Sainte Berthe, who has not been organic or biodynamic, but now they have also started their conversion to become organic. The trend break came when the vineyard got a new responsible person. Mas Sainte Berthe, however, stopped using chemical weed control ten years ago and has since applied “Viticulture raisonnée” where pesticides are only used point by point in case of established disease and not preventively.

Update 2022-11-22: Les Baux de Provence will in 2023 be the first 100% ecological appellation in France. It will during 2023 be followed by Calvi in Corsica.

Visiting tips: If you have not visited Les Baux and its old castle, it is highly recommended even if you will not be alone there. Very interesting is also the “cinema” Carrières de Lumières which is located directly below the castle. On the walls of an old quarry is currently shown a slide show with works by Cézanne and Kandinsky.

Source: Vitisphere and La Revue du Vin de France

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Göran Boman, Author of the books “Provence – Vita, röda och även roséviner” and “The Wines of Provence – Tricolour”.