Welcome to gaillac

Cradle the strong ones and rich personalities after being touched in the middle by the sudden starts of the history, Gaillac is thus thousand years old and more. Beginning a new cycle of the expansion in this end of XXth century - it became the fourth commune of the Tarn, with more than 11.000 inhabitants, after the census of 1999 - it advances without having too much has to suffer from the gashes of the past. If its fortifications were for the essence destroyed at the time of the Revolution, if are first bridge raised in 1257 on the Tarn at the XIVth century - the current bridge Saint Michel goes back to 1930 - the stages of its development remain readable thanks to the safeguarding of its old center and beautiful buildings, for some become public, gradually built since the first development of the wine trade. Like a watchtower, in overhang of the Tarn, the Saint Michel abbey takes care on the city. In the maze of the narrow streets which draw the crown of historical Gaillac, of vast remain bricks, hotels and turns of the periods medieval and rebirth, testify to initial prosperity. The castle and the park of Foucoult give to the city its airs Tuscan. And the vast esplanade on which gives the Town hall, characteristic of the structure of the second XIXth century, announces, for the hour, the ultimate great urban modification of the city.

• The wine road

The vineyard gaillacois emphasized its remarkable inheritance by a specific indication thanks to the ways in crossings, the walker will be able to discover a castle here, there a farmhouse, elsewhere a cooperative wine cave to which it radiates.
On this wine road, each one and each one will be able to go to the meeting of a vine grower or an expert who will tell you vines, wines, soils.

• Terraces of Left bank

The first stage of this wine trail involves us on the terraces of left bank of the Tarn. Formed through S ages along the river, this soil is extended on 30 km between Florentin and Couffouleux while passing by Técou, Montans and its archéosite, or Peyrole. Here, at a modest altitude, the vine expresses all its potential on grounds of rollers, gravels, of sand or boulbene. Certain vine growers speak thus about the Low registers of left bank. On this soil, the predilection is with red type of vines.

• Slopes of Right Bank

For this second phase, we passed from the other with dimensions of the river, on Right Bank. Delimited in the West by Vère, a vast space invites to the walk in direction of the plate twisted at the beginning of Gaillac, Rabastens or Lisle until Castelnau de Lévis. The slopes of Labastide, Bernac, Saint Croix, have grounds argilo-limestones. At this relatively high altitude, exposed full south and protected by the forests of Grésigne and Sivens, the vines dominate the valley of the Tarn. The grape has a later maturity here.

• The plate twisted

This soil is characterized by white limestones and stony grounds which bring to the wines smoothness, flavours, fruity and typicity. On these grounds argilo-limestones, at an altitude which can reach 300 m, the vine profits from a long sunning. Pleasing slow maturation to gather the grapes grapes 10 to 15 days later that on the first slopes located in edge of the Tarn. Characteristics of the ground and climatic conditions are combined to produce wines - white, in a significant proportion - races and distinguished.

The association " Tourism and wines in Gaillacois " propose " trott " who combine to cultural tourism and discovered particular cellars. While following the circuits proposed, you will be able to go to taste wines of Gaillac in the caveaux ones, accomodated by the vine growers themselves, and to profit from conditions privileged to discover cultural sites and museums of Gaillac and its surroundings.

Between the wine-producing areas of Bordeaux and Languedoc-Roussillon, the Aquitaine and Midi-Pyrénées vineyards have succeeded in perpetuating their wine-growing vocation across a mosaic of very different terroirs, gathered under the banner " Vineyards of the South-West ".

From the banks of River Dordogne to the Lot Valley, from Pays Basque to Gascony and Agenais, from the south of Massif Central to the slopes of the Tarn, from the terraces bordering the River Garonne to the old walls of Toulouse... the Vineyards of the South-West reveal the largest collection of specific grape varieties, of characteristic wines and spirits, and share a thousand years of history.

The brand new Comité Interprofessionnel des Vins du Sud-Ouest, officially created in December 1997, gathers 13 appellations from the Aquitaine and Midi-Pyrénées regions : 5 AOC (Appellations d'origine contrôlée) Côtes du Frontonnais, Gaillac, Madiran, Marcillac, Pacherenc-du-Vic-Bilh and 7 QWpsr (Quality Wine produced in a specific region) Côtes du Brulhois, Côtes de Millau, Côtes de Saint-Mont, Estaing, Entraygues et Fel, Lavilledieu and Tursan.
In this mosaic of very different terroirs, the Gaillac vineyard is situated 50 km east of Toulouse, in the direction of Albi, in the Tarn departement. The vineyard stretches over both sides of the Tarn and to the north up to the medieval town of Cordes.

The Gaillac wine house welcome you to its cellar, every day from 10 to 12 a.m and from 2 to 6 p.m. Let us make you discover and advice about the wine and vineyard of A.O.C. Gaillac

The museum of Beautiful arts is installed since 1934 in the Castle of Foucaud. Rather conceived like a villa that like a castle, this residence of the summer was built in the field of the city of Este, in the years 1660. It is registered voter in the center of a superb garden of Italian and French going down in terraces towards the Tarn. Decorated beautiful brick buildings - stables, orangery, house of reading, it constitutes one of the most beautiful whole of this type in midday. the castle - museum was entirely refitted in 1994 and shelters out of two stages of the permanent exposures. In the low rooms, temporary exhibitions are regularly installation.

The funds of the museum consists of paintings, sculptures, and drawings d' artists of XIXth and the XXth centuries, primarily regional. The major collection is consisted the works bequeathed by the painter Firmin Salabert in 1895. Firmin Salabert was the raise of Ingres, and probably one of most remarkable. Shining portraitist, it left many pastels and drawings of the romantic artists of the years 1830 that he accompanied in their displacement in Paris and London. Its work preserved at the Museum of Beautiful arts includes also beautiful romantic landscapes of the Alps.

The importance of the funds of the graphic works results in presenting it by alternation.