Sable de Camargue is the Indication Géographique Protégée (IGP) title for wines made along the Mediterranean coast of eastern Languedoc in the south of France. The appellation covers land in the administrative departments of Herault, Gard and Bouches-du-Rhone, and is best known for its Vins Gris (gray wines), made predominantly from Grenache, Cinsaut and Carignan.
© Wikimedia/Jjshapiro
This part of the southern coast of France is dominated by the sizable Languedoc AOC, which covers a large area of land stretching from Narbonne to where the Rhone river meets the Mediterranean. Sable de Camargue covers just a small part of this area, on the strip of sand dunes that runs along the coast, hence its name: the "Sands of Camargue". The Languedoc crus of Picpoul de Pinet and Pic Saint-Loup can be found just to the north of the IGP.
The Sable de Camargue IGP title is reserved for vineyards that are planted on the light, sandy soils that cover the dunes along the coast. The climate is definitively Mediterranean, with long hot summers and low annual rainfall. Sea breezes bring freshness to the vines during the growing season, ensuring the development of acidity alongside phenolic ripeness.
The high permeability of the soils and the vineyards' close proximity to the ocean means that vines must be carefully tended by growers, particularly in regards to irrigation and salinity. In fact, in parts of the area covered by the IGP, vines spend a small portion of the year awash in the tide. It is this feature, along with the sandy soils, that meant that Camargue vineyards were largely unaffected by the phylloxera louse that devastated the French wine industry in the 1880s.
Vineyard land in this part of the Languedoc has reduced considerably in the last 10 years, as the government has promoted vine-pulling in some of the less viticulturally suited parts of France. However, the vineyards of the area have been classified as distinctive enough to warrant their own IGP, if not an AOC-level classification. The Sable de Camargue IGP replaces the previous Vin de Pays des Sables du Golfe du Lion, which has been phased out since 2009.
