I’d heard about this. Vines that suffer and struggle to survive … seem to provide the grapes that make the best wine.

If so, it’s amazing the Languedoc wasn’t given more attention earlier for fine wines.

The ground here is awful. Rocks everywhere. I doubt a vintner could stick a shovel in the ground anywhere in this part of the Languedoc and not turn over a rock or 20.

See the photo, above? That is not an unusual number of rocks to see in a vineyard in this neighborhood.

It is hard to imagine planting anything but grapes here — certainly not cereals — because it must be nearly impossible to plow the terrain here.

We visited a nearby domaine last week, and in the tasting room they had put together a display showing what local “soils” look like. Each of three boxes purporting to show a young vine in the ground in three nearby areas.

And they best be described as “rocky, rockier, rockiest”.

Anyone who thinks the local domaine is exaggerating is welcome to take a walk in the foothills here and find the dozens of patches of ground just as rocky as the one above.

If we stay long enough, we hope to pick the brain of a winemaker and ask the dozens of questions we have about wine production, and how fine vintages can be extracted from such inhospitable land.