Domaine Les Pallières

Pallières appears among the Gigondas locality names recorded in 15th-century notarial deeds. The first Roux probably arrived at Pallières in 1694, and the estate stayed in the family until 1998; the family's deeds and papers start in 1602. In 1765 a Roux family ancestor built the Chapel of Notre-Dame de Grâce. The estate long farmed olives, apricots, truffles, and vines for wine and table grapes, and also bred silkworms. Successive bequests fragmented the property: by the early 1950s Hilarion Roux owned the house and scattered plots making up a 15-hectare property, and he then bought and cleared land to form the estate as it is today. When the winter of 1956 killed the olive trees, he planted vines in their place, and some of the current plantings date from that time. In 1980 Hilarion Roux retired, and his three sons, Pierre, Maxime and Christian, jointly inherited the estate through a Groupement Foncier Agricole that owned the vineyard, homes and woodland. In 1998 Pierre and Maxime Roux sold the estate, having carefully chosen their successors.

• Roux family era: probably 1694 to 1998.
• 1765: the Chapel of Notre-Dame de Grâce is built by a Roux family ancestor.
• Early 1950s: Hilarion Roux holds a 15-hectare property and begins buying and clearing land.
• 1980: Pierre, Maxime and Christian Roux jointly inherit the estate through a Groupement Foncier Agricole.
• 1998: Pierre and Maxime Roux sell the estate.

In 1998 Daniel and Frédéric Brunier, of Domaine du Vieux Télégraphe in Châteauneuf-du-Pape, became co-owners of Les Pallières alongside their friend Kermit Lynch, who had been their US importer since 1978. The purchase sealed an association that began 20 years earlier, when the first cases of Vieux Télégraphe were exported to the United States. Kermit Lynch's own account traces the plan to revive Les Pallières to a lunch at Chez Panisse between Daniel Brunier and Lynch. The Brunier family's Vieux Télégraphe site lists Domaine Les Pallières as acquired in 1998 in partnership with family friend Kermit Lynch. Within the Brunier family company at Vieux Télégraphe, Frédéric's son Nicolas and Daniel's son Edouard took key posts in 2015 and 2016, and Frédéric's daughter Manon joined them in 2018.

• Co-owners since 1998: Daniel Brunier, Frédéric Brunier and Kermit Lynch.
• Kermit Lynch had been the Bruniers' US importer since 1978.
• Les Pallières does not receive visitors at the domaine; its Gigondas reds and Au Petit Bonheur are offered for tasting and sale at Vieux Télégraphe in Bédarrides.

Domaine Les Pallières lies in the northeast of the municipality of Gigondas, in the Vaucluse, and all its plots are in the Gigondas AOP area. The estate was bought as a single piece of land and totals 135 hectares: 25 hectares of vines and 110 hectares of woodland, composed mainly of pine and oak. Most of the vineyards are arranged in single-row terraces to cope with very steep slopes. The shallow soil sits on a layer of very compact red clay and is partly covered by limestone rockslides from the Dentelles de Montmirail, and the proportion of scree rises with altitude. The vines face northwest. When the current owners acquired the estate in 1998, the vineyard comprised 13 hectares of very old vines planted at the start of the 20th century around the winery buildings and 12 hectares of old vines planted after the 1956 freeze higher up the hillsides; since 2010, four hectares of vines in the lower section have been pulled out. Plantings are 70% Grenache Noir, 15% Syrah, 10% Mourvèdre and 5% Cinsault. All varieties except Syrah are goblet trained on one wire, the Syrah is Guyot trained, and the average yield is roughly 22 hectolitres per hectare.

• The Les Pallières plots lie at 250 to 400 metres.
• Main plots: Terrasse du Diable, La Longue, Plantier de Christian, Thomas Poncet, Le Grand Travers, Le Petit Travers, Les Vieilles de Derrière, L'Argile, Le Pré, La Pancarte and Le Pas de Vège.
• Climate: Mediterranean, with the Mistral wind keeping the vineyards healthy and very hot summer temperatures.
• The estate traces the Pallières name to the word palier (step, level), a reference to the difference in level between the rows of vines.

The first years after the 1998 purchase were spent putting the 25-hectare vineyard in order, and two hectares of vines were pulled out and replanted. A new winery built in 2002 introduced gravity flow and a process that allows each parcel to be vinified separately. In 2003 the vat room was completely overhauled, from crop intake to the temperature control system and the vats. For both Gigondas reds, grapes are hand-picked with double sorting at the vine and a third sort in the winery, then gently crushed and selectively destemmed before 25 to 30 days of traditional fermentation in temperature-controlled concrete and wooden vats, pneumatic pressing and systematic malolactic fermentation. The reds mature for 20 months in 60-hectolitre French oak foudres, are bottled unfined and unfiltered, and are released at two years.

• 2002: new gravity-flow winery with parcel-by-parcel vinification.
• 2003: the vat room is completely overhauled.
• Gigondas reds: 20 months in 60-hectolitre French oak foudres, bottled unfined and unfiltered.
• 2012: a goat farm is established at Les Pallières and the first cheeses are made.

From the 2007 vintage, the single red wine produced at Domaine Les Pallières became two plot-specific Gigondas cuvées, Les Racines and Terrasse du Diable. The estate explains the split by its two microclimates, whose grapes it found yielded wines so different that they struggled to attain harmony when blended. Les Racines is made with grapes from the domaine's very old vines, planted mainly around the winery, with Grenache above 80% of the blend alongside Syrah, Cinsault and Clairette; grapes from about 60% of the plantings go into it. Terrasse du Diable takes its name from the estate's highest plot and is made with the grapes from all the high-lying plots, at 250 to 400 metres in the lieux-dits Poncet, Thomas, Les Pallières and Terrasse du Diable. Its blend is 90% Grenache, 5% Mourvèdre and 5% Clairette from vines averaging 45 years, and grapes from about 40% of the plantings go into it. The Roux brothers cleared forest to create the Terrasse du Diable plot after the 1956 freeze. A Blanc de Noirs, Au Petit Bonheur, was first made at Les Pallières in 2004; it is made with Grenache Noir, Cinsault and Clairette pressed straight after hand-picking, fermented together and matured in 650-litre demi-muids, and it is the only Vin de France produced by the Brunier family in the Rhône Valley.

• Les Racines: Gigondas from the estate's oldest vines, Grenache above 80% with Syrah, Cinsault and Clairette.
• Terrasse du Diable: Gigondas from the high plots at 250 to 400 metres, 90% Grenache, 5% Mourvèdre and 5% Clairette.
• Au Petit Bonheur: Blanc de Noirs bottled as Vin de France, first made in 2004.
• Output potential: the equivalent of 40,000 bottles of Les Racines, 30,000 of Terrasse du Diable and 15,000 of Au Petit Bonheur.

The estate defines the Les Pallières style by the landscape, the influence of its particular aspect and the limestone scree from the Dentelles foothills, and calls it a style of "rugged elegance and mineral warmth", a Gigondas "ideal for laying down." On the estate's own account, Les Racines has "the velvet, depth and harmony of old Grenache" and very high ageing potential, while Terrasse du Diable shows in its youth the minerality, freshness and occasionally over-rugged tannins of high-lying terroirs, and its fine vintages have cellaring potential of 20 years and more.

Primary sources (producer's own site): https://www.lespallieres.fr/en/, https://www.lespallieres.fr/en/le-domaine/histoire/, https://www.lespallieres.fr/en/le-domaine/geographie/, https://www.lespallieres.fr/en/le-domaine/vignoble/, https://www.lespallieres.fr/en/les-vins/, https://www.lespallieres.fr/wp-content/uploads/2021/03/fiche_technique_pallieres_gigondas.pdf, https://www.lespallieres.fr/en/contact/. Owner-group sources: Brunier family (Domaine du Vieux Télégraphe), https://www.vieux-telegraphe.fr/en/histoire/; Kermit Lynch, https://kermitlynch.com/files/les-pallieres.pdf. Official appellation source (Inter Rhône): https://www.vins-rhone.com/en/cotes-du-rhone-cru-aoc-gigondas. Last verified 2026-10-19. Where the producer's site and a secondary source disagree, the producer's site governs.