The Pertuisane story began in the foothills of the Pyrennées. In 2002 winemaker Richard Case and his wife Sarah staked their future on two hectares of ancient Grenache vines surrounding the village of Maury. Convinced of its truly exceptional terroir, they added eight more hectares in time for the 2003 harvest resulting in the first small run of high-quality, handcrafted wine.
Maury is a remarkable winemaking village in the Catalan region of southern France. It lies midway between Spanish Catalonia and the southern Rhône valley and, like the vineyards of Priorat and Châteauneuf du Pape, is dominated by gnarled old-vine Grenache on broken, black schist soils. The landscape is tough and unforgiving. Not much else survives here except an impenetrable garrigue of Spanish oak, dense scrub, aromatic lavender, rosemary and thyme. The summer sun is intense and the windswept vineyards can’t help but produce small quantities of rich, intensely flavoured fruit.
Yields at Pertuisane are exceptionally low. Vineyards range from 20 – 100 years of age, although most are over 50 years old and produce as little as 10 hectoliters per hectare (less than half a tone an acre). They are dry-farmed and harvested by hand.