Page 17 - Nouvelles 46 - Automne 2021 - EN - web hd

NOUVELLES BEAUJOLAIS
DE BOISSET
FALL 2021

Life in a stately home

The Pierreux wine estate covers 106 hectares that are
More than seven centuries of history
have shaped this fortified castle from the virtually contiguous around the chateau itself. It is located
13 century, from when two towers still in the bucolic Beaujolais landscape of small hills dotted
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remain. The vaulted cellars date from the
17 century, while the present building was with vines, right at the foot of Mont Brouilly.
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remodeled in the 19 century.
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The chateau’s vines in the Brouilly appellation
were added to in 2016 with seven hectares
of white. They are worked on a plot-by-plot
basis and include more than 110 lieux-dits
identified by their land-registration name
or sometimes a more colloquial one that
may refer to their former owner.
The wines vinified at the chateau are made
into three cuvées of Gamay and one of
Chardonnay. One of the original features
of these resolutely silky and lively wines
is that they are nurtured and matured in
magnificent wooden tuns that are hard
to find these days.
The cellars, vegetable garden, grassland
used for biodynamic farming, pond, woods,
meadows, and a fabulous park containing
hundred-year-old trees all contribute to the
charm of this wine estate. But life at the
Château de Pierreux is mainly organized
around the vines and their seasons.
Last spring, Alain Dugoujard’s team
planted three new plots. Some 6,800m2
were replanted in Garanches in addition
to half a hectare last year, and the vines
are trained onto trellises to favor growth
and facilitate harvesting. A further 1.8
hectares of vines on the plot of La Mère
Gelin behind the chateau and another 1.5
hectares at Burdin near the neighboring
village of Odenas were also replaced.
Although 2021 is the fifth year of organic
farming on four hectares of the estate
and the fourth year of biodynamic
farming, the harvest, here as elsewhere,
is expected to be very small because of
the spring frost and the summer rain that
encouraged disease. But this chateau has
seen it all before...

The young plot
at Creigne, at the foot
of Mont Brouilly.

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www.chateaudepierreux.com  Château De Pierreux  @chateaudepierreux