History

Our family has been present in the southern Rhône Valley, between Vaucluse and Gard, for several hundred years. Our winegrowing adventure began in 1870, with the creation of the domaine by Emile Espérandieu when he married his wife, who owned vines in Domazan.

Fascinated by the millennia-old history of our region - the Pont du Gard, a masterpiece of Roman architecture, is just a stone's throw away - this jack-of-all-trades was a military man, a recognized archaeologist specializing in ancient writings... and a winemaker. However, as was often the case at the time, he was involved in mixed farming, growing apricots and white cherries in addition to grapes.

It was he who built the family home in 1870. It's in this attractive building, in the center of the village of Domazan, that our wines are still vinified and aged today. The estate has traditionally been handed down from father to son, with each generation adding its own contribution to the edifice.

Jean Espérandieu succeeded Emile and reduced arboriculture to develop viticulture from the 1930s to the 1950s, an activity in which he was passionate and excelled. His son Norbert took over the family estate in 1974. An excellent winemaker, the quality of his wines enabled him to develop bottle sales and a presence on fine tables and with the best wine merchants. In the vineyard, he plants a lot of Syrah, a grape variety he adores, which is hardly paradoxical in the realm of Grenache!

At the end of the 1990s, we bought some splendid plots of land (25 ha) on the Signargues plateau, and thus participated in the birth of the Signargues AOC in 2005.