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Master Winemaker 100: Gérard Bertrand

26 March 2026 By db staff writer

The winemaker and founder of Gérard Bertrand Group features in this year’s Master Winemaker 100 guide. He tells db about democratising wine styles, investing in biodiversity and the similarities between music and winemaking.

*Gérard Bertrand in Narbonne (Photo credit: David Fritz Goeppinger)*

Before taking over the family business 35 years ago, Gérard Bertrand played rugby union for France and RC Narbonne. One of the most influential producers in Languedoc-Roussillon, he oversees 17 estates with more than 900 hectares combined, and is a major advocate of biodynamics.

A wise person once told me that to make great wine, you must first listen to the earth. Nature always has the final word.

A great wine should have the taste of somewhere, not just the taste of something. It should express its terroir with harmony, balance and emotion.

A great winemaker should be humble before nature and patient enough to let the terroir speak.

Perfection is an endless journey, guided by passion. The pursuit of perfection, that daily effort to go deeper, to care for every detail, is what gives meaning to our work and allows us to reveal the very best of our terroirs.

The thing I’d most like to change about the wine world is for it to be more open to new drinking habits and wine categories: orange, low-alcohol, unfiltered wines. It’s time to democratise these styles and make the world of wine less intimidating, and more accessible and inclusive.

I wish I could tell the consumer who drinks my wine that each bottle carries the soul of the South of France: a story of light, wind and people.

The last time I asked a sommelier for advice was to discover a new pairing that could surprise me as much as inspire me. I’m always very curious to see how sommeliers interpret our orange wines and the creative pairings they imagine around them.

If I couldn’t be a winemaker, I would be a musician: both are about rhythm, harmony and emotion.

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I wish our vineyards to remain vibrant and resilient, with living soils, deep roots and people who care for them with respect and purpose.

My next ambition is to keep demonstrating that biodynamics can create the great wines of tomorrow.

If I won the lottery, I would invest even more in protecting biodiversity, and in education for future generations.

If there were more hours in the day, I’d spend them meditating, taking time to reconnect with silence and energy, to pause, breathe and realign with the rhythm of nature.

When it’s all going wrong, I return to nature; it restores perspective and peace.

My desert island wine would be my La Grande Bleue. After all, if I’m surrounded by water, I might as well enjoy a fresh, saline wine that perfectly reflects the minerality of the Mediterranean.