Day one, part three
Finally made it over the river to Châteauneuf and the Perrin family at their great Château de Beaucastel. There cannot be a more successful and esteemed family in the Rhône Valley. Some families do very well in business. Some get famous for their wines. Rarely both.
Today though, was not to see Beaucastel, but to go a couple of miles to their new cellars where they make the 'Family' wines from their other, now quite extensive, vineyards.
There, they have made and we have just launched their – and our – very exciting 'Meridion' range of wines. I'd never seen the place. I was expecting something a bit more of a 'Big Production' than Beaucastel itself, but no, it actually seemed smaller; nice old farm up a long avenue of plane trees. It had Beaucastel style great halls of polished oak fermenters. Mark and Pierre showed us round as the first fruit was coming in.
All-new
equipment, lovely machines. Not cheap. Even a laser sorter. These
replace fallible humans … like me. (I 'sort' at our winery. Chucking out
grapes we don't want. I'm not as good as this machine … especially
after lunch). You show this machine a perfect grape. It puts it in its
memory. It laser scans every grape coming into the cellar. Anything that
doesn’t look just right: 'Bzzt'! It’s gone. On a tiny jet of air.
Machinery like this, it’s no wonder there are no 'bad vintages' anymore …
for those who can afford this kit. Even in a poor year this thing will
only pick out perfectly ripe grapes.
Anyway
after the tour and taste we head up to their little estate in Gigondas …
and their own restaurant; 'L'OUSTALET. Terrific meal ending in an
exquisite Beaucastel 2000.
They spoil me.
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| Beaucastel '98 |
Finally made it over the river to Châteauneuf and the Perrin family at their great Château de Beaucastel. There cannot be a more successful and esteemed family in the Rhône Valley. Some families do very well in business. Some get famous for their wines. Rarely both.
- Galets in the Beaucastel vineyards
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Today though, was not to see Beaucastel, but to go a couple of miles to their new cellars where they make the 'Family' wines from their other, now quite extensive, vineyards.
There, they have made and we have just launched their – and our – very exciting 'Meridion' range of wines. I'd never seen the place. I was expecting something a bit more of a 'Big Production' than Beaucastel itself, but no, it actually seemed smaller; nice old farm up a long avenue of plane trees. It had Beaucastel style great halls of polished oak fermenters. Mark and Pierre showed us round as the first fruit was coming in.
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| Pierre and Marc in the new, but still very traditional cellar |
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| Dinner in Gigondas |
They spoil me.
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