We picked the Counoise in Beaucastel on Tuesday 27 September. We will stop harvesting momentarily as the mourvèdre can do with a little more time of ripening. The weather forecast predicts good weather and an increasing mistral. We have decided to wait for a perfect maturity of the mourvedre.

We stop the harvest at Beaucastel and wait for Mourvèdres


The grape-harvests are complete in Cotes du Rhône and Villages, of Vacqueyras and of Rasteau. We continue harvesting in Gigondas and have not begun in Vinsobres. 

The first wines have finished their alcoholic fermentation, and taste extremely good.  The colors is magnificent, with supple tannins… it is top of the line feel.

Between Friday and today, Monday, we have harvested all the Grenache in AOC Châteauneuf du Pape in Beaucastel.  We were able to collect these grapes at the optimal conditions of maturity and continued picking over the weekend in order not to surpass the peak of maturity . 

The weather is simply perfect, hot with a light mistral which continues to concentrate the berries. 



This Monday we will harvest the Grenache at Vacqueyras and in Gigondas and we will finish the ‘small’ grapes varieties of Beaucastel (Muscardin, Terret noir, Cinsault and vaccarese).

Contrary to our planning, we will not begin to pick grapes at Vinsobres today; and will be concentrating on Chateauneuf-du-Pape; and specifcally on the vineyards that compose our Chateauneuf Perrin et Fils les sinards.

This morning we have been concentrating on our parcels of grenache situated inside the walls that surrounds the castle of the Popes, you can see the walls (framing the ruins) on the photo below. 

Harvest at Sinards in Chateauneuf du Pape





We continue next in another vineyard of grenache that is situated right in the center of the village of Chateauneuf, just underneath the Chateau, outside of the chateau walls.  It is a parcel of grenahe that will be of grenache that will be component to our Chateauneuf Perrin et Fils les sinards. 

Another parcel of Sinards and a different view of the Chateau of the Popes

The weather is magnificent without the wind.

The weather continues to be good today.

The 105 grape-pickers should finish today the grenache in Côtes du Rhône, both for the Coudoulet and Perrin Reserve.  We should begin tomorrow picking the grapes in Vinsobres and Gigondas. 

In the Vineyards of Coudoulet de Beaucastel

The weather is perfect today with bright sunhine and a strong mistral blowing, judging from the weather reports below.

This is the ideal conditions for picking extremely healthy grapes.  This morning, we will finish harvesting all the white grapes of Chateauneuf and collect the last parcels of Roussanne as well as the Bourboulenc.  This afternoon we will begin picking the Grenache in Coudoulet, and continue the grenache of the Grand Prébois vineyard which will go into the Côtes du Rhône Perrin Réserve.

The Grenache for Perrin Réserve Arrives at Prébois Winery

The harvesting team has swelled to 105 persons. and we are now picking the marsannes in the coudoulet de Beaucastel vineyards, and the following the syrah there. The weather is good with a bit of mistral.

We quickened our pace for the last two days. We have our entire team of grape pickers (about 90 persons) and concentrating on picking the Syrah in Beaucastel.

The weather is manificent, the mistral has been constant. The condition for the harvest is at its optimum.

It is a beautiful day today  with much sunshine and temperature between 25° and 27° for the entire Rhone Valley.


We are taking advantage of the optimal weather and will accelerate our pace of picking with two team in the vineyards:

– one team at the vineyard of Perrin et Fils in Vacqueyras (harvesting syrah).

– one team at the vineyard of Perrin et Fils in Châteauneuf-du Pape, in a parcel situated on the foot of the chateau (which was the residence of the popes in the 13th century) which will be a composite of the Chateauneuf du Pape Perrin et Fils, les Sinards, white.

Mr Roche picking grapes at the foot of the Château of Chateauneuf.


All the grapes are sent to the winery of Perrin et fils (about 5km) by our refridgerated trucks which allow our grapes to arrive without a heated effect at the winery

The grapes are loaded into refrigerated trucks at Chateauneuf du Pape.

We decided not pick any grapes on Saturday and preferred to wait till Monday to finish the picking of the viognier in the vineyards of Coudoulet de Beaucastel. As a matter of interest, the Viognier is not in the list the 13 authorized grapes that are admissable into the AOC of Chateauneuf du Pape, however as the Coudoulet is situated in the Cotes du Rhône…in addition, neither is the marsanne variety.

We are now preparing to start our picking of the syrah in Chateauneuf du Pape vineyards.  We have called in the enlargened team for the next day few days’ work. 

The weather today is beautiful and hot. The weather forecast indicates that we should expect the Mistral for the next few days. 

It was good weather today in the Southern Rhone. The rain stopped at night and the sun shined brightly through the whole day.

We decided not to re-start picking as the grapes were engorged with water, absorbed from the rains. We should start picking tomorrow starting with the viognier in coudoulet de beaucastel, our côtes du rhône of Beaucastel 

We will take the opportunity during this time to tour our properties and assess the maturity and health of our vineyard plots.  The photo below was taken on the road to Gigondas, and you can see this magnificent village to the bottom.  (You can see here a map of where Gigondas is in relation to the rest of our vineyards)

The road to Gigondas

It rained intermittently today and we did not pick grapes. It was light and fine rain, which will be easily absorbed in by the soil.

The syrah enters the wooden vats.

The weather is threatening today, and the weather forecast has told us to expect rain.  Despite the forecast, we are harvesting the Viogniers and Marsannes of our vineyard at the Prébois of Orange. 

The Harvesters at the “Prébois:“, in front of the Winemaking cellar of Perrin & Fils.

The good weather continued through the weekend, and it was very hot in the day, but the weather changed last night. This morning, we have been picking white grapes and will stop at 11am due to rain.

We will take advantage of these moment of inactivity, to tour the different vineyards of Beaucastel and Perrin & Fils. Even with our different chemical analysis, it is simply indispensable to taste the grapes to have precise idea of the maturity and choose the optimum moment for picking.

François Perrin tasting the raisins in‘Sinards’ of Chateauneuf

We did a few pickings today; we expect to increase the tempo from Monday.  The weather is beautiful and hot, the temperatures are above 30° Celsius; its almost as if it were July…

The harvest at Perrin & Fils, at the foot of the Dentelles de Montmirail.