Moving Forward

Château de Beaucastel pushes ahead with innovation, while keeping tradition at its heart. Technical director Pierre Perrin reveals the newfangled methods his family winery embraces

ierre perrin stole headlines in 2013 as the winemaker who created the awardwinning Chateau Miraval Rosé 2012 for Hollywood’s Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie. But Perrin and his family have been stealing the hearts of wine connoisseurs for generations. Château de Beaucastel, the Perrin family’s most upmarket range of wines, distributed here exclusively by Taste of Tradition (tel: 6299 9300), delivers its distinct complexity by preserving what it knows best: terroir and tradition. On 100ha of its 130ha vineyard in the southern Rhône region of France, the family continues to graft all 13 of the original grape varietals authorised within the Châteauneuf-du-pape appellation, even after their peers moved on to the more productive Grenache following the crippling infestation of the root aphid phylloxera mid to late 19th century. In 1950, Perrin’s grandfather Jacques explored farming grapes organically and then biodynamic agriculture in 1974, both considered progressive for their time, to protect the natural qualities of the land. The vineyard was officially certified as organic in 2000. This same drive to push ahead of the crowd through innovation is also seen in Pierre, who elaborates on how the winery is moving with the times.

How is Château de Beaucastel keeping up with the times?

We work to modernise our winery and its techniques every day, while simultaneously ensuring our loyalty to our traditions. One way we are updating our business is using our own yeast instead of commercial yeast. And that means we get to choose the best one for our wines.

What are the benefits of this method?

The best-quality yeast will give our wines a lot of flavour. It will ensure a good fermentation process and allow us to obtain a wine that has less alcohol content, because the yeast will require more sugar to be added as compared to the commercial type. This idea of a lower alcohol level is especially important because I’ve noticed that wine drinkers these days are looking for wines with more elegance, more finesse, less structure and less alcohol. In this case, white and rosé wines have become more popular.

After maturation and bottling, Beaucastel cellars its wines for another year. Why so?

Maturing the wine this way is important because it helps our wines achieve the balance we