Saint-Péray: from sparkling wines to still wines

It is still possible to discover these vineyards in the north of the Valley of Rhône to use the various motorway exits. However, to try and understand them, with a slight nuance, we recommend instead following the road that descends from Ampuis and at the very end, about sixty kilometers further south, appears the Château Crussol, perched atop a limestone massif. This château is the emblem of the appellation Saint-Péray. The slopes of the Crussol massif are essentially limestone, but crossing the small valley of the Mialan where the Rhône A few million years ago, the vineyard, highly fragmented and organized into small plots, re-entered areas of alluvium and loess, then the granite that characterizes the geology of the northern part of the Valley of Rhône . L' appellation Saint-Péray today primarily produces still white wines, although it owes its reputation to sparkling wines. A little history…

“In the early 1800s, Saint-Péray had 500 hectares of vineyards, 50% of which were planted with white grape varieties. In the absence of regulations, Champagne producers sourced their grapes from all over at the time, including Saint-Péray, from a merchant named Louis Alexandre. He quickly conceived the idea of ​​making his own sparkling wines using the traditional method, and the first sparkling wines appeared in Saint-Péray around 1829,” explains Rémy Nodin, a local winemaker and history enthusiast. “At the time, Saint-Péray was a stronghold of the Rhône Valley wine trade. From 1829 onwards, everyone started producing sparkling wines, selling them all over Europe at high prices. By the mid-19th century, half of the local production was sparkling wine, and the merchants were also producing sparkling Hermitage and Condrieu.” In the heart of the small town of Saint-Péray, there are a few imposing buildings such as the Clos Tassini's works attest to this glorious and prosperous past.