Why it matters
The producer
Mas du Notaire is a 30-hectare estate at 4 rue Saint-Sébastien in Gallician, where the Costières de Nîmes appellation meets the flat, sunlit country between the Camargue and the coast. Built in the mid-19th century and acquired by the Rambier family in 2004, it makes red, white and rosé wines under the Costières de Nîmes name. The red Maître brings the estate’s three documented Rhône grapes—Syrah, Mourvèdre and Grenache—into one bottle, with vintage details that matter to how the wine tastes.
The estate’s name reaches back to an early-20th-century owner who was an honorary notary, while its present chapter began when the Rambier family acquired the mid-19th-century property in 2004. That continuity is tangible on a Maître label: the wine comes from a named estate with its older title intact, but from a vineyard now worked as part of the Jean-Pierre Rambier estates. The 30 hectares give the domaine room for red, white and rosé wines, while Costières de Nîmes keeps the range tied to one southern Rhône appellation.
Place and vineyards
Where the wines begin
Gallician sits south of the Rhône’s better-known inland slopes, close to the Camargue and the Mediterranean. That coastal position brings a strongly Mediterranean pattern of abundant sunshine and seasonal rainfall, while the Mistral moves through the vineyard. In a red Costières de Nîmes blend, that combination frames ripe fruit with dryness and freshness: Syrah, Mourvèdre and Grenache can reach full flavour in the sun, while wind and seasonal weather keep the growing season from becoming one-note.
The ground under Mas du Notaire changes from sand to clay-limestone and rolled limestone pebbles, including stones carried by an old bed of the Rhône. Pebbles collect daytime warmth around the vines, while sand and clay-limestone bring different textures to the rooting ground. The result is not a single soil signature but a vineyard assembled from several materials, a useful context for a Costières de Nîmes red that balances fruit weight, tannin and a dry finish rather than relying on one grape alone.
In the cellar
Vineyards and cellar
Since the 2019 harvest, the Jean-Pierre Rambier estates have held level-three Haute Valeur Environnementale certification. At Mas du Notaire, that documented estate-wide framework sits alongside a vineyard exposed to wind, sun and seasonal rain; it places environmental management in the same landscape that ripens the grapes for its reds, whites and rosés. For Maître, cellar detail is explicitly vintage-bound: the 2023 review records its élevage, and the producer gives a separate blend and barrel regime for the 2024 wine. Those versions should be treated as different wines, not as interchangeable technical recipes.
Wines to know
The range in view
Mas du Notaire makes the three principal colours of Costières de Nîmes: red, white and rosé. The clearest named red is Maître, built from Syrah, Mourvèdre and Grenache; a 2020 assessment gives the proportions as 50% Syrah, 30% Mourvèdre and 20% Grenache, while later vintages carry their own blend details. That structure puts colour, fruit and tannin at the centre of the red range: Syrah supplies dark-fruit and peppery character, Mourvèdre brings savoury depth and grip, and Grenache adds breadth and warmth. The white and rosé establish range breadth, but their grape mixes and cellar methods are not documented here.
A useful way in
A bottle to begin with
Start with Mas du Notaire Maître 2023. It is a Costières de Nîmes red of Syrah, Mourvèdre and Grenache, and it is the vintage with the fullest documented independent review, including its production and drinking window. In the glass, it offers the most direct way into the estate’s red-wine language: dry fruit, spice, savoury depth, tannin and body shaped by a Mediterranean site. Keep the vintage on the label in view; Maître 2024 has its own published blend and barrel treatment, so the name stays constant while the wine’s balance can shift.