Ultimate Provence – UP – is a new winery built on the foundations of an exceptional wine estate near Saint-Tropez.  Within the beautiful 114 acres you will also find an exceptional hotel and restaurant designed to bold, original and stylish.

At the heart of UP, is the Rose Wine itself which is an exceptional wine and the team stop at nothing to ensure that the wine will continue to win critical acclaim.

For over 80 years on the Saint-Tropez peninsula, Château Minuty has been the story of the Matton-Farnet family.

Already the owner of the Domaine de Châteauneuf in Vidauban, Gabriel Farnet acquired Château Minuty in 1936. The Estate and its small chapel were originally built under Napolean III, the latter lending its name “De l’Oratoire” to the wine that was for years the Estate’s flagship product.

Many of the most prestigious hotels on the Côte d’Azur still stock this curved bottle.

Gabriel Farnet began by completely replanting the Estate, bringing Château Minuty back to its former glory and splendor after the Second World War.

Today Jean-Etienne and François Matton have taken over Minuty, pushing the estate even further forward. They have left their mark by continuing to restructure the vineyard, replacing the Carignan and Ungi Blanc varietals with Grenache and Rolle and by streamlining the winery equipment to create a modern, state of the art facility.

Château Minuty wines are vibrantly expressive. Fresh and fruity gems elegantly presented in decidedly modern bottles ranging from the super iconic Estate wines ‘Château Minuty 281’ & ‘Château Minuty Or’ through to the emblematic icons of the ‘Prestige’ and ‘M’ range.

These wines are elaborated in true Minuty style, combining freshness with great fruit extract and intense flavours and are true customer favourites.

After years of dreaming and scheming, Jeany and Stephen made the decision to leave the leafy suburbs of South London behind in exchange for the blue skies and sunshine of Provence.  With three young children in tow, they held hands and leapt into the unknown.  Armed with big ambitions to make a world-class rosé wine, and willing to challenge established wisdom, they founded Mirabeau. They embarked upon the ultimate family adventure and created one of the world’s most loved brands of rosé.

The Vineyard is located 13km from the historic village of La Garde-Freinet and in the commune of the Golfe de Saint-Tropez, the domaine is a just an hour from Nice airport and an hour-and-a-quarter from Marseille and therefore ideally situated for international travel and exploring the glamourous French Riviera. Nestling in a secluded section of the Plaine des Maures National Nature Reserve, its unique position means it’s also close to Provence’s stunning villages, idyllic countryside and coastline.

Domaine Mirabeau falls within the newly created subregion within the Côtes de Provence AOC, Notre Dame des Anges. The terroir covers 3,900 hectares of vineyards interwoven within the landscape of umbrella pines, cork oak trees and chestnut groves typical of the Plaine des Maures, an ecosystem rich in fauna and flora.

The 20-hectare estate includes 14 hectares of vines (principally grenache, cinsault and rolle) and enjoys a Mediterranean climate with hot summers, bright sunlight and a prevailing easterly wind. Unlike the rest of the region, which is dominated by low, soft-leaved ‘garrigue’ scrubland, this part of Provence is noticeably different with evergreen ‘maquis’ scrubland and stony terrain formed from pink sandstone and sandy soils

Mirabeau Approach to Regenerative Agriculture

Stephen and Jeany are deeply committed to the environment and finding a way to produce leading wines whilst also farming in a way that respects and preserves the surrounding ecosystem.

They at the very beginning of this Regenerative Agriculture journey at Domaine Mirabeau, having only stopped conventional farming when Stephen and Jeany bought the domaine back in September 2019, and are now on our four-year conversion to Organic. 

Domaine Mirabeau is a true farm, complete with animals that all play a key part in their ecosystem. Free range chickens and ducks provide eggs for visiting guests at the as well as eating insects that destroy plants, their pigs Frankie and Digby help reduce food waste, and alpacas Vince and Pablo provide manure for the vegetable garden.

Their environmental commitments guide all their activities on the domaine and they are continuously striving to reduce our carbon footprint. They take their eco-credentials very seriously and have set ambitious goals to become entirely plastic-free, minimise the use of energy, water and raw materials and are also exploring other ways to reduce waste

Mirabeau Azure Provence Rosé

Night harvested followed by gentle direct pressing, partial cold maceration and temperature controlled fermentation. The wines are protected by inert gas from vineyard to bottling.

Mirabeau Azure Provence Rosé will not be found in the supermarkets as it is exclusively made for the Independent Wine Merchant and Fine Restaurants, this beautiful Rosé wine is “about as good as Provençale Rosés get.”

A fabulous dish to showcase the wine would be grilled salmon, kumquat salsa and miso- glazed aubergine.  

Take me to Provence now….

In the heart of Roussillon, the southernmost point of France, in a stone-built 15th century Catalan farmhouse, Domaine Lafage overlooks the road that connects the small town of Perpignan to the Mediterranean coast. A unique panorama shows an incredible view over the sea, dominated by the snow-capped peak of the mountain of Canigou, so dear to the Catalans.

The vineyard of the Domaine today extends over more than 350 hectares across the whole of Roussillon, from the Mediterranean shores at Canet-en-Roussillon, to the Pyrenean foothills of Aspres, via Maury.

Roussillon is a region of great wildness, which demands respect and close attention to understand how to work in sympathy with the land. The work is hard, and needs a long-term vision, but the result is there to be seen, with wonderful grapes that give rise to great wines. Jean-Marc and Eliane Lafage have established a very detailed mapping of their vineyard through an in-depth study of the soil and subsoil. This knowledge makes it possible to adapt, very precisely, the cultivation methods to the types of wine they wish to obtain, while respecting the typicity of each micro-terroir.

The Estate has a total of 15 grape varieties, as well as an important heritage of very old vines, including some centenarians. The fragmentation of the plots, which spread like a mosaic across the whole of the Catalan territory, reflects the careful way that different terroirs have been acquired and worked over the past 2 decades.

Miraflors Rosé Wine – the Flagship Rose of the Domain

It’s always nice to find a delicious, light, juicy rosé outside of Provence and Miraflors Rose is a favourite with our customers.

The vineyard is located in the IGP Côtes Catalanes and the wine is made from Grenache Gris and Noir vines some nearing 80-years-old, together with a portion of younger Mourvèdre, this is made from early-picked grapes to ensure a fresher style and pressed without crushing for an incredibly pale hue.

Miraflors Rose Wine has been winning over critics and receiving plenty of awards and this Rose Wine is must have feature in your wine rack.