Béarn

Styles

Principal grape varieties

Terroir

• The production area spans 74 communes divided into three distinct sectors: around Salies-de-Béarn and Bellocq, to the south and west of Pau between the Gave de Pau and the Gave d'Oloron, and to the north-east in a loop of the Adour.
• The hillsides are often asymmetrical, with a steep slope facing west and a gentle slope facing east, with an elevation difference reaching around one hundred metres.
• The rocks forming these relief features consist essentially of continental Tertiary sediments (molasse, marl, limestone, clay, Sables Fauves, gravel sheets), occasionally marine, and Secondary sediments (flysch), overlaid during the Quaternary by aeolian silts still present on the plateaux and gentle slopes.
• The oceanic climate, humid and mild, brings from 1,000 mm per year in the north of the area to 1,300 mm per year in the west, with a drier period in summer and early autumn when a southerly foehn-type wind blows one day in three.
• The soils, mostly leached and acidic, include soils over limestones visible discontinuously at the foot of the steeper hillsides, with gravel-sheet summits that enrich the slopes through colluviation.

• The red varieties Fer and Bouchy (Cabernet Franc), established since very early times, were in use as early as the eighteenth century alongside Tannat, a deeply coloured and tannic local variety.
• The Béarn vineyard reached almost 20,000 hectares at the beginning of the nineteenth century, compared with declared areas of between 200 and 300 hectares today.

• The red wines have good tannic potential with fruity aromas that often dominate and can develop greater complexity with ageing.
• The rosé wines generally display a colour ranging from pale pink to a deeper rose, and are fresh and supple with notes of small red fruits and citrus.

• The warm, dry southerly wind that blows during grape ripening has favoured viticulture in this otherwise generally humid region.

Facts drawn from the specification's terroir-link section by automatic interpretation — see the source.

All appellations in France

Sources

• Product specification (BO Agri, PDF) — approved 14 avril 2025, JORF 16 avril 2025
• Official INAO text (show_texte)
• INAO product entry
• Official trade body site — IVSO — Interprofession des Vins du Sud-Ouest