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Vins de la Correze is the departmental Indication Géographique Protégée (IGP) title that covers all wines made in the department of Correze in central France. The department is dominated by the Massif Central – the low mountain range that covers a huge area of southeast France – and as such is not well suited to viticulture. There are no overlapping AOC-level appellations and only a tiny amount of wine is made here, mostly in the lower-lying south-western corner of the department.
Correze is around 100 miles (160km) inland from the Atlantic coast and the vineyards of Bordeaux, and experiences a continental climate with cold winters and hot summers. In the more-mountainous parts of the region, this is too extreme for winegrowing, but where vineyards lie at lower altitudes south of the city of Brive, some favorable mesoclimates for viticulture can be found, mainly on sunny, south-facing slopes. On these slopes, marly, stony soils of limestone and sandstone provide a fairly well-drained base for the vines, helping to temper the effects of moderately high rainfall.
Traditionally, the wine made in Correze is made from grapes that have been dried on straw mats, concentrating the sugars and leading to a rich, sweet style of wine. The Vin de la Correze IGP law allows wine made in this way (to certain standards) be labeled as Vin Paille, or "straw wine". These wines, which hail mostly from the area around the villages of Meyssac and Queyssac, are made predominantly from Cabernet Franc and Cabernet Sauvignon for the red wines, and Chardonnay and Sauvignon Blanc for the whites.
The Vins de la Correze IGP has replaced the previous Vin de Pays de Correze denomination since 2009. This is part of a larger change in French wine law that is designed to improve the image of the category, as well as bringing it in line with wider European wine law.
