Roman remains
Fans of Costières de Nîmes know the Perrottes vintage from Domaine de Poulvarel well. Coming from a typically Rhone terroir, located to the north of the appellation, it is a red with notes of black fruits and cocoa and touches of both mineral and spice. In 2013, it was even voted favorite in the Hachette Wine Guide.
What is less known is that it owes its name… to an archaeological curiosity hidden in the grounds of the estate: the Perrotte tunnel, dug into the rock by the Romans 2,000 years ago to transport the water from the Fontaine d’Eure spring, near Uzès, to the town of Nîmes.
On the route of the aqueduct, around fifty kilometers long: two obstacles. The Gardon, which will be spanned by the Pont du Gard, and the hills which enclose the Escaunes valley, to the north of the current village of Sernhac. Hence two tunnels – Perrotte and Cantarelles – perforated with the escoude, a quarryman’s tool, while the architects, equipped with a groma and a chorobate, checked the direction and level.
As a child, Pascal Glas played as a neighbor in these tunnels, several dozen meters long, with his brother in endless games of hide and seek. Having become a winemaker, the choice to give the name Perrottes to a vintage is first and foremost a nod to the land where he grew up. But, incidentally, it is also the sign that a wine is not only made from the soil of the vine: within it also flows the history of a territory.
The Domaine de Poulvarel:
Family property for three generations. Until 2004, the grapes were delivered to the Cave de Sernhac.
When the cooperative closed, Élisabeth and Pascal Glas created the Domaine de Poulvarel. A cellar and a vault made of Pont-du-Gard stone emerge from the ground, surrounded by 20 hectares of vines.
Today, the Domaine de Poulvarel is an estate of 40 hectares of vines including very old plots of Grenache, Carignan and Syrah.