Château Pesquié
The Free Bacchus Story
Mont Ventoux is the mountain that has broken cyclists for a century, and the vineyards below it sit high enough that harvest here runs weeks later than on the Rhône valley floor. Cooler nights, longer hang time, fresher wines.
The estate began picking around 20 to 25 September in the early 1980s. It now starts around 5 to 10 September. That is a climate measurement taken by the people who have to work in it.
The Chaudière family hold Ecocert organic and Demeter biodynamic certification estate-wide, along with Vegan Society registration, which covers the fining agents used in the cellar rather than the farming. Three marks, each certifying something different, and the estate-wide part matters: it means no convenient carve-outs.
Silica is the single-vineyard Ventoux red, alongside Artemia, Ascensio and the Cuvée des Terrasses. Ventoux has historically been priced as a lesser southern Rhône appellation, which is good news for anyone paying attention rather than paying for a name.
The Vegan Society mark is the detail we find most useful, because it answers a question no wine label is otherwise required to address.
“There is much less biodynamic farming than organic farming in the Ventoux.”
Why it’s remarkable
Free Bacchus Verification
- Ecocert Organic + Demeter Biodynamic (estate-wide) + Vegan Society
If you’re buying
Cheat sheet
Save it to your phone. Everything you need to recognise this producer, and three things worth saying about it, at a glance in a shop or across a table.