Château de Vaudieu

The château was built in 1767 by Admiral Gérin, a lieutenant of the Marseille admiralty, and is one of the three eighteenth-century castles still standing in Châteauneuf-du-Pape.

The name comes from that same year: the Archbishop of Avignon blessed the property and called it Val de Dieu, the valley of God. Vaudieu came from that, and one of their cuvées is still called Val de Dieu.

In the mid-19th century, just before phylloxera, the estate was one of the four great vineyards of the appellation.

There are 70 hectares in a single block of land, uncommon in Châteauneuf-du-Pape, where vineyards are usually scattered in parcels across the commune. Sixty go to red and ten to white. The soil is a mosaic of more than seven different geological compositions — sand, safres, sandstone, terraces of rolled pebbles, marls and limestone slopes — between 85 and 125 metres, and each terroir is vinified and aged separately before blending.

The Bréchet family has been at the house for three generations, with Laurent Bréchet in charge.