Come and visit us on our stand from 22 to 24 February 2010, to discover and taste our range of wines.

We purchased l'Oustalet last summer and after a very busy season, we closed the restaurant last November for refurbishment.  L'Oustalet is right in the centre of the village of Gigondas on the "place du village". 

Last week we re-opened and the restaurant has a new look, a new chef, and a new wine list!  The Chef, Aurélien Laget was sous-chef at the famous 2 Michelin star restaurant Chez Bru in Eygalières. The specials menu changes daily following the seasons and according to what takes the Chef's fancy in the market.

It is the height of the Truffle season in Provence at the moment so of course we have a special truffle menu.  We have a wide selection of wines from our fellow winemakers around France. Our dishes have been designed to match certain wines and the sommelier can advise customers accordingly. 

Last week we experienced the biggest downfall of snow in 25 years !  40cm of snow fell last Friday and a week later, patches still remain.  Needless to say that we had to interrupt all our activities mainly the pruning for the whole week.
Snow is actually beneficial for the vineyard as when it melts it penetrates slowly into the soil and helps break it up. Furthermore with the cold temperatures as low as -11°C  all parasites were destroyed. Today the sunshine is back and the forecast is for warmer temperatures in the next few days.

 

Since the end of harvest, we have been very busy out in the vineyard at Beaucastel. We have prepared the holes for the plantation of new vines in the spring, we have spread the compost  and we have hand ploughed a few plots. The autumn was mild and dry so we took advantage of these weather conditions to get a lot done outside.  Since Christmas there has been a change and it is now cold and quite humid.

In November we harvested our olives in Beaucastel and Vinsobres. It is a good year for olives and we will be producing some good olive oil for our kitchens!

The start of the new year is also a start to a new viticultural. Since the beginning of the week the entire team is dedicated to pruning at Beaucastel but also in Cairanne, Gigondas and Vinsobres.

In the cellars, the last malolactic fermentations of the 2009 are ending and we are very happy with this vintage which has a great structure with soft tannins.

We would like to take this opportunity to wish you all a very happy New Year.


A bientôt !

       

From 16 to 21 November 2009, Shangri-La Hotels and Resorts, will host a series of exclusive events together with Primum Familiae Vini.

Gala dinners will take place
- at Island Shangri-La, Hong Kong (16 November 2009)
- at Shangri-La Hotel, Tokyo (18 November 2009)
- and at Pudong Shangri-La, Shanghai (20 November 2009).

Trade and press events (by invitation only) will also be taking place at all above venues.
 
At gala dinners, a member of each family will present the family estate and one of its flagship wines that are hard to acquire in the marketplace, paired with specially designed menus.

In each city, the gala dinners will be moderated by longtime PFV friend Serena Sutcliffe M.W. head of Sotheby's Wine Department.

Guests will have the opportunity to celebrate their passion for fine food and wine through intimate and personal conversation with 11 families who are the historic owners of some of the world’s very greatest vineyards.

The PFV members in attendance will be Alessia Antinori (Marchesi Antinori), Baroness Philippine de Rothschild (Château Mouton Rothschild), Laurent Drouhin (Maison Joseph Drouhin), Egon Müller (Egon Müller Scharzhof), Etienne Hugel (Hugel et Fils), Hubert de Billy (Champagne Pol Roger), Marc Perrin and Pierre Perrin (Perrin et Fils), Paul Symington (Graham's, Warre's and Dow's Port), Juan-Maria Torres (Torres), Sebastiano Rosa (Tenuta San Guido) and Pablo Alvarez (Vega Sicilia).

A Primum Familiae Vini collection case, containing one bottle of each member's flagship wine, will be auctioned under the hammer of Serena Sutcliffe M.W. at the gala dinners for the benefit of a local charity.

More details here.

Beaucastel 2005 was one of wine spectator's top 10 wines of 2008. A few weeks ago, at the New York Wine Experience, Marc Perrin commented a tasting of this wine and explained the Family's organic viticulture practices. The video from WineSpectator is here

Despite a cold and snowy winter, spring in 2009 was mild with no frost after February.  It was also a fairly dry season with little Mistral. The summer was hot and dry, but was very consistent and the temperatures went up progressively throughout June and July and ended with a peak the last 2 weeks of August with temperatures as high as 40°C.  It was not as hot as 2003 as temperatures cooled down at night and July was generally cooler.  We had rain on 6 July and then no rain fall till the middle of September.

Due to the high temperatures in August, the ripening of the grapes was accelerated, not because of the phenolic maturity but because of dehydration. Therefore we decided to wait and not harvest the reds too early and hope for further maturity. 

We started to harvest the whites on the 24th of August throughout the different Perrin Estates. The whites have good fruit and acidity and will be well balanced. We had perfect weather conditions for harvest with maximum temperatures running between between 20°C and 30°C during the whole month of September.

We started the red harvest with Syrah on 31st August and continued with the Grenache on 8th September.  The phenolic maturity had just turned by then and the Grenache has a nice colour, good maturity and great fruit.  2009 is a very good vintage for Grenache.

On September 16th we had just over 60mm of rain which we were all waiting for. The vines were suffering from hydrous stress and after that date the ripeness started moving fast.  We had harvest about half of the Grenache across the different estates but still remained to be started it in Coudoulet and Beaucastel.  We waited till the the following week to resume harvest after a couple of days of Mistral.  The end of the harvest went very fast. We finished the Grenache and started the Mourvèdre on 24 September.  The rain did a lot to the Mourvèdre and we are very happy with the results.

We finished harvest in Vinsobres on September 30th which is 300m high so needed a bit more time to ripen.

We are very happy with the 2009 harvest. The grapes were healthy with great fruit and good extraction and the first tastings show that we shall be making some great wine with soft tannins and great structure. Despite the hot temperatures we managed to maintain a good acidity thanks to the cooler temperatures at night.  You could compare this vintage to 2005 and 2007.

In this video, Fabrice Langlois explains the characteristics of each grape variety we use in Beaucastel and what each of them bring to the final blend.

Chateauneuf-du-pape : 13 grapes variety

by Leslie Gevirtz

http://www.reuters.com/article/email/idUSTRE59J1S820091020

Perrin et Fils, 2007 Nature Cotes du Rhone (France)

List price is $13.99. If you can find it for this or even $15 or $16, buy it. It's organically grown Grenache with a splash of Syrah from a top grower. And it's delicious. The nose is a trumpet of strawberries, blackberries, toast off the barrels and black pepper. The palate is voluptuous with silky tannins and a blast of red berry fruit and acidity. It's showy. It has substance. It pops in the mouth. I can't help but think the "Nature" part of the equation has something to do with it.