Château de Terride

The château itself dates from the mid-17th century, built by the Grenier de Terride family, master glassmakers of the Albigeois. The vines only really arrive around 1960. In 1996, Jean-Paul and Solange David bought the property; their daughter Alix, an oenologist, and her husband Romain have since taken over, with a clear stance: organic in the vines, and hospitality at the heart of the project.

Because Terride isn’t just an estate where you buy wine. A pop-up restaurant, concerts, a botanical trail, harvest experiences, a gîte with a pool: the couple has tipped the house toward experiential wine tourism, carried by the setting — the Grésigne forest on one side, the perched village of Puycelsi on the other. In the cellar, the bold use of grapes from outside the appellation (Grenache, Viognier) breaks with the classic Gaillac image.

That’s also its limit, to put it plainly: here the experience sometimes takes over from the wine, and appellation purists may baulk at the international grapes. But for a stop that blends tasting, landscape and a table, a stone’s throw from Puycelsi, few estates offer a setting like this.