Domaine Pelaquié

Selection before the cellar

Grapes reach the cellar as a set of decisions before they become wine; Luc Pélaquié, winemaker at Domaine Pélaquié in Saint Victor La Coste, carries that work from the vineyard into élevage. His title at the estate is practical rather than ceremonial: head of the estate and wine producer, responsible for keeping the house style legible while each vintage answers to fruit, site, and cellar handling. The family has cultivated vines here since the 16th century, and the modern domaine has worked as an independent estate since 2008, when the vineyards were separated from a larger cooperative. That independence matters at the bench-side level. It gives Pélaquié control over selection, fermentation, aging, and assemblage, instead of surrendering those choices to a shared system. The estate itself began in its present form in 1979, and its vineyards sit around the family house in the countryside of Saint-Victor-la-Coste, in the Gard. Pélaquié’s public record is tied to the wines themselves, including Guide Hachette notices for Domaine Pélaquié bottles and a 2* Étoiles citation for Domaine Pélaquié Côtes-du-Rhône Villages Laudun rouge 2018.

Laudun, Lirac, Tavel and the long selection

The program is built across about 100 hectares of vines, with the estate producing a full range of right-bank Côtes du Rhône wines: Côtes du Rhône, Côtes du Rhône Villages Laudun, Tavel AOC, and Lirac AOC. Grenache Noir, Syrah, and Mourvèdre give the reds their Southern Rhône frame; Grenache Blanc, Clairette, and Viognier carry the whites. Pélaquié is associated especially with round, rich white wines, harvested in October for aroma, freshness, and length. The Laudun soils bring another kind of discipline, lighter ground of sand, clay, and limestone that can hold acidity where the climate pushes ripeness. One Côtes du Rhône Rouge has been described through its sourcing as half declassified Laudun-Village fruit and half vineyards just outside the Laudun appellation. The 2022 Côtes du Rhône Rouge keeps the blend at 50% Grenache and 50% Syrah. The method is not one gesture but a chain of them: choosing parcels, reading maturity, deciding what remains in appellation, what joins the blend, and what waits in tank or barrel.

A quiet cellar in the family house

The cellar and tasting room sit on the property, with vineyards close enough to keep the work visually present. The room is rural and calm rather than staged; the emphasis falls on bottles, soils, and the differences between Tavel, Lirac, Laudun, and Côtes du Rhône. Tastings here are guided by the wines themselves, moving through white, rosé, and red rather than through decoration. That suits the estate. A family domaine of this age does not need theatrical cues to declare continuity. The evidence is in the cellar rhythm, the range of appellations, and the way a visitor can move from a Grenache-led red to a Laudun white without leaving the same house vocabulary. The place feels built for explanation at a measured pace. The vineyard remains the first room.

Cuvées that keep the record

The named bottles around Pélaquié give the estate’s continuity a useful shape: Luc Pélaquié 2021 blanc, Domaine Pélaquié Laudun 2018 blanc, Domaine Pélaquié Laudun 2008, and Luc Pélaquié 2024. None of them stands alone as a monument. They read as entries in a working cellar, where each vintage adds another decision to the family line at Domaine Pélaquié Laudun 2018 blanc.