The La JASSE vineyard is situated on a altitude of approx. 150 – 200 meters, mainly exposed to the East-South-East side at the entrance in a picturesque valley near the small village of Combaillaux. Before the 1960’s most of the La JASSE surface was used for cattle and only a very small part was used for vineyard. When the Beaujard family repatriated from North Africa to the Mediterranean South of France they became the proud owners of this Domaine and slowly started to reclaim more surface for vineyards.
The Beaujard family discovered that the soils at La JASSE had been good the Plane-trees and for cattle, but in combination with the perfect Mediterranean Sea climate and La JASSE micro climate which shows strong similarities with Bordeaux, it was actually much better and profitable to use intensively for vineyards.
The soils had not been used for any agriculture use and therefore the condition of these soils was still very young, dynamic and perfect to plant new Vignes. Many other vineyards already exist for a long period and often have been used for centuries. In comparison to the La JASSE vineyard, the soils at La JASSE are still very fertile and can almost be seen as VIRGIN vineyards.
The soils may have been better for vineyards use, the surface at La Jasse was not so perfect because of the rocky hillside of the valley. The labour to reclaim this rocky hillside was very hard and very expensive for the Beaujard family and therefore they mainly focussed on the most easy parts to reclaim. The majority of the current vineyard was planted after the Beaujard family sold La JASSE in the early 1990’s to an important Dutch wine merchant Hans Walraven, who had a deep love of intense ripe Cabernet Pauillac fruit. Mr. Walraven was one of the most important Grands Crus wines importer in the Benelux and also author of the Dutch ‘Grands Crus guide”.
He acquired Domaine de la Jasse from the Beaujard family some 20 years ago to follow his favourite wine dream and create an own similar type of Pauillac styled Cabernet-Sauvignon which would remind him of his favourite wine Château Lynch-Bages. He specifically selected Cabernet-Sauvignon and Merlot varieties clones from Grands Crus cultivars to give what he has described as the aristocratical taste.
Nowadays the primary grape variety planted at La Jasse is mainly Cabernet-Sauvignon with some small parcels of Merlot and Cabernet-Franc. The soil composition is mainly stony/ rocky and chalky, with clay and loam and the average age of the Vignes are approx. 30– 35 years old. The size of the Domaine is approx. 90 hectare of which almost 40 hectare is planted.
