Chateau Peyros Madiran Vieilles Vignes

Description

Chateau Peyros Madiran Vieilles Vignes is a red wine from the South-West of France. It is a blend of 80% Tannat and 20% Cabernet Franc sourced from the estate’s oldest vines. and is the estate’s signature wine. 

Chateau Peyros itself dates back to the 17^th century when the estate was  home to a convent of 200 nuns. It is the most southerly wine estate in the Madiran wine-growing appellation and is located in the tiny village of Corbère-Abères in the Haut-Béarn region.

During the 1960s Peyros was a benchmark wine for the Madiran appellation, and was well-known for the finesse of their wines which were served in the best restaurants in France. By the 1990s the estate required investment and improvement and the then owners, with no children of their own, decided to sell the estate to the Lesgourges family in 1999. The Lesgourges family are a family of wine merchants and distillers (Armagnac Château de Laubade) from the Bas Armagnac region. The estate is run by Arnaud Lesgourges we had set about improving the estate in 1999 with much improvement in the vineyards and adherence to sustainable viticulture. The estate was awarded the French environmental certifications HVE3 and are members of Terra Vitis. Since 2010 the cellar master has been Corinne Lanyou, an expert with the Tannat grape variety and a native of the region. She has been responsible for introducing oak barrels from Burgundy to the winery. The cellars were designed by French wine legend Emile Peynaud and have recently been upgraded to becomes some of the most modern in the region.

The estate consists of 42 acres (17 hectares) of vineyards which are planted on a rocky outcrop. The estate has a very specific terroir and microclimate for the region and is one of the few estates in the region to benefit from a full southerly exposure, guaranteeing optimum ripeness every year. The soils here are primarily silty-clay studded with pebbles which were brought by the mountain glaciers and locked up by clay ( similar to gravel in the Graves appellation). The vineyards are planted with Tannat and Cabernet Franc. Peyros means “stony” in the Gascon language.

Chateau Peyros Madiran Vieilles Vignes is a blend of 80% Tannat and 20% Cabernet Franc sourced from the 5,5 hectares of old vines planted on pebbly, medium sized gravels on clay-silty soils. Only grapes from 40+ year old vines are used. After harvest, the wine undergoes a traditional vinification in stainless steel. The wine is then aged for 12 months in a combination of 225L and 500L, a third of which are new from the cooperages of Saury in Corrèze, Gillet in Bourgogne and Allary in Charentes.

Annual production is around 26,500 bottles.

UK research published in 2006 has identified the naturally occurring antioxidant compound in red wine responsible for the reduction in the risk of coronary heart disease and the lowering of overall mortality in regular, moderate consumers of red wine. The research also identified that Madiran wines have rarely occurring extremely high concentrations of those antioxidant compounds. For further information read about Roger Corder’s Red Wine Diet.