Domaine du Pegau

Full oversight in the cellar

Old foudre sets the pace for Laurence Feraud, winemaker at Domaine du Pegau in Châteauneuf-du-Pape, before any bottle carries her name. She trained at Macon and Paris, then returned to the family winery and worked beside her father Paul from 1987–2005, an apprenticeship measured less by credential than by repetition: the same cellar questions, the same appellation pressure, the same need to hear what each vintage will permit.

In 2005, Feraud took on full oversight and winemaking at the estate. That title sits across a wide bench. She carries the Domaine du Pegau line through daily decisions and through the final shape of the wines, keeping continuity with the house while adjusting to the season in front of her. The work is not framed as reinvention. It is a discipline of control without stiffness, especially in a place where Grenache can speak with force if the hand lets it run too far.

Whole clusters and old foudre

The cellar language here is traditional: Grenache-dominated blends, whole-cluster fermentation, and extended aging in old oak. The estate works from old vines averaging 60+ years, with fruit rooted in sandy-clay soils and pebbles across Châteauneuf-du-Pape, including the La Crau plateau. Grenache leads the red wines, with Syrah, Mourvèdre, Cinsault, Counoise, Vaccarèse, Muscardin and Terret Noir in the appellation register; the whites draw from Clairette, Roussanne, Bourboulenc and Grenache Blanc.

Cuvée Laurence gives the method its clearest marker. The wine ages longer in old foudre before bottling and remains tied to the estate’s regular Cuvée Réservée, set apart by patience rather than ornament. Alongside it, Feraud’s named range includes Cuvée Réservée, Cuvée Dapo, Selection Laurence Feraud and Plan Pegau Rouge. Read together, the bottles show how one cellar can hold a house style without flattening its parts.

The cellar keeps its own volume

The room at Domaine du Pegau is quiet in the way working cellars often are, with attention falling toward barrels, tanks and the next small correction. The setting has rustic elegance because it has little need to perform age; the craft already asks for long contact, old oak and the patience of wines that do not rush toward release.

Tastings happen in the cave and barrel room, close to the materials that shape the wines. That proximity matters. A glass of Cuvée Réservée or Cuvée Laurence reads differently when the old foudre is part of the room rather than a line on a label. The place does not turn the cellar into theater. It lets the method remain visible.

Names carried through the range

Feraud’s work at Domaine du Pegau is best followed through the bottles that carry both estate continuity and her own decisions. Within that range, Cuvée Laurence, Cuvée Réservée, Cuvée Dapo, the Laurence Feraud selection, and Plan Pegau Rouge each hold a different place, while the cellar grammar stays legible: whole clusters, old vines, old oak, and time. The close attention belongs, finally, to Cuvée Laurence.