Mas Des Bressades

Returned to the family vines

Cyril Marès de-stems fruit for stainless steel at Mas des Bressades in Manduel, where he works as winemaker, owner and director. Cyril Marès returned to the family estate in 1996 after training at Montpellier, bringing agronomy, viticulture and enology back to the Costières de Nîmes rather than treating the domaine as an inherited name alone. Roger Marès bought the property in 1964, after a family connection to viticulture described across six generations, and the present work still reads through that long agricultural memory. Cyril’s cousin Alix manages the estate, keeping the house structure close to family hands while Cyril holds the cellar and the direction of the wines. The place sits near Manduel in the northern Camargue, on rolled Rhône pebbles and red clay, with vines at 70 meters. The Provençal word behind Bressades means “to rock,” a name tied to the Mistral that moves through this part of the Rhône corridor. That wind is not scenery. It tempers heat, helps preserve acidity, and reduces pressure from rot and pests in the vineyard.

Concrete, barrel, stainless steel

The cellar method is not one gesture repeated across the range. Grapes arrive de-stemmed, then ferment in temperature-controlled stainless-steel tanks before élevage splits by cuvée. The Syrah-Grenache Tradition rests in concrete, a choice that keeps oak away from that red and leaves the fruit and the galets roulés to carry the line. The Viognier-Roussanne blend spends five months in barrel, enough time to build texture without turning the white program into a wood exercise. The rosé Tradition comes from free-run juice, a gentler pull from the fruit. Les Vignes de Mon Père, drawn from old Cabernet Sauvignon and Syrah vines, ages for a year in oak from one- to two-year barrels and stands as the domaine’s tribute cuvée to Cyril’s father. The estate has moved from sustainable farming into certified organic work, after applying for conversion in 2017 and reaching official certification by the latest 2024 appellation update. Across Grenache, Syrah, Cabernet Sauvignon, Mourvèdre, Cinsault, Roussanne, Marsanne and Viognier, the discipline is separation rather than sameness.

A working cellar in the northern Camargue

The room here is rural and functional, closer to a working cellar and caveau than to a polished wine-tourism set. The estate does not need much theatre around it: red clay underfoot, Rhône stones in the parcels, heat cut by wind, tanks and concrete doing separate jobs in the cellar. Tastings and cellar-door sales sit beside the work rather than apart from it, with the wines pointing back to the same ground the visitor has crossed to reach the door. Mas des Bressades is often described through its Costières de Nîmes position, but the more useful way to read it is bench-side: which vessel holds which cuvée, which parcel gives which structure, which family decision still shapes the next vintage. Les Vignes de Mon Père names the lineage plainly.