Some names, in the world of wine, need no introduction. Minuty is one of them.
Perched on the hills of Gassin, between schist and clay, the estate has grown its vines in gobelet training since 1936, under the stewardship of the Matton-Farnet family. One of the 18 Crus Classés de Provence since 1955, no less.
We went to understand what lies behind the unmistakable pale hue of their rosés. We left with a history lesson, an impressive cellar, and the discovery of a red we weren’t expecting.
A terroir shaped by the mistral and the sea
Gassin looks out over the Gulf of Saint-Tropez, and it shows in every bottle.
The vines, trained low in gobelet fashion, sink their roots into schist and clay soils, sculpted by constant sea spray. The mistral plays the same role here as it does in Ramatuelle: it cools, disciplines, and shapes rosés with a paleness that has become the estate’s signature. It’s no accident that Minuty has established itself, year after year, as a reference point for Provence rosé.
A family story since 1936
Founded in the 19th century and rebuilt under Napoleon III, Château Minuty has belonged to the Matton-Farnet family since 1936. One of the 18 Crus Classés de Provence since 1955, which says a great deal about the rigour behind every bottle.
What strikes you on arrival is the contrast between the quiet elegance of the façade and the scale of the work happening behind it. The tasting counter, tucked beneath a cascade of rosé bottles hanging from the ceiling, sums up the spirit of the place perfectly: serious in its craft, light in its atmosphere.
Inside the cellar
Stepping into Minuty’s cellar, you understand that the estate’s reputation isn’t built on a beautiful terroir alone.
Entire rows of barrels, some engraved with the estate’s name, stretch out as far as the eye can see. A terracotta jar, discreet among the oak casks, is a reminder that Minuty also explores older ageing methods. Nothing is left to chance: every choice of vessel shapes the wine’s final character.
The cuvées that make the estate’s reputation
The 281 is Minuty at its most accomplished. A single parcel of old Grenache vines, hand-harvested and vinified without compromise. The estate’s top of the range, plain and simple.
The Rouge et Or, on the other hand, surprises. You come looking for rosé and leave won over by a spicy, generous red, far from the image the estate is usually known for.
And then there’s the “Limited Edition Lucia Vinti” display, a reminder that Minuty doesn’t just make good wine: the estate also cultivates the art of presentation, right down to its most exclusive editions.
Behind the signature paleness of its rosés, Château Minuty hides a cellar that rivals the greatest estates, and a red that deserves your attention.
🇬🇧 Series · The Vinous Trinity · Article 15/15 · Spain · ⏱ 5 min
Three countries, fifteen articles, a series that ends. What Spain will have brought to The Vinous Trinity: a lesson on old vines, families holding on, terroirs once written off that are now revealing themselves. And now, a question: where is the Spanish vineyard heading?
🇰 What we take away
Spain has a reputation for being a vineyard easy to summarise. Rioja, Tempranillo, Albariño: three names will do, apparently.
This series will have shown otherwise. Spain is the country where you can still find century-old ungrafted vines on volcanic or granite terroirs that nobody knew twenty years ago. The country where families have defended for four or five generations varieties the rest of the world has forgotten. The country where the most interesting viticultural work is often done without a budget, in regions that still have no international name.
Priorat, Ribeira Sacra, Sierra de Gredos, the Canary Islands, Txakoli: places that did not appear on the world wine map thirty years ago and which now hold a recognised position on it.
🌡️ Climate change: Europe’s most acute challenge
Spain is among the European countries most exposed to the effects of climate warming. This is not an opinion: scientific projections show an intensification of heat episodes, drought and water stress across the Iberian Peninsula. In certain very hot areas of La Mancha, the Levant or Extremadura, high ripeness levels can lead to naturally very elevated alcohol content. Drought and increasing aridification are advancing across several regions of the Centre and South, adding pressure on water resources.
Spain’s response runs through altitude. Sierra de Gredos, where some old Garnacha vines are cultivated between 800 and 1,200 metres. Producers are also seeking solutions in forgotten local varieties: varieties selected and cultivated for centuries in demanding environments can represent a valuable resource for adaptation, particularly when they ripen late or show good tolerance to water stress.
Galicia, wetter and more Atlantic, still benefits from a climate that allows it to retain a certain freshness. But warming is already shifting the balances: Albariño more easily reaches higher ripeness levels and water management is becoming a topic there too. The Rías Baixas season is lengthening; Albariño is gaining in maturity.
🌿 Organic farming: Spain in the lead
Spain is by far Europe’s largest organic vineyard by surface area. In 2023, around 166,000 hectares of vines were managed organically, representing roughly one fifth of the national vineyard.
This figure deserves nuance. It covers very different realities: between a small family estate with a longstanding ecological commitment and a large structure certified to meet market demand, the motivations and practices can vary considerably.
The gap between an artisan producer in the Sierra de Gredos and a large certified organic cooperative in Extremadura is significant.
But the underlying trend is real. A new generation of family wineries is explicitly choosing organic or biodynamic conversion as both philosophy and identity.
🍷 Natural wine in Spain: a movement taking shape
The natural wine movement was slow to take hold in Spain. Spanish wine culture was traditionally oriented toward stabilised, technical wines designed to withstand transport and storage.
The 2000-2010 generation changed that. Producers such as Comando G in Gredos, Partida Creus in Catalonia or Envínate in the Canary Islands and Galicia helped popularise a low-intervention winemaking approach: spontaneous fermentations, reduced use of sulphur and limited cellar inputs.
These wines quickly found an audience among specialist wine merchants, sommeliers and importers internationally, before gradually gaining visibility on the Spanish market itself.
What the series will have shown, and what remains
A vineyard that had not yet said its last word. Terroirs once thought exhausted that are finding their purpose again. Families transmitting against all odds.
The future of the Spanish vineyard will not be built from Madrid. It will be built in the Sierra de Gredos, in the gorges of Ribeira Sacra, on the volcanic slopes of the Canary Islands, in the Galician granite. Where nobody expected much.
The end of The Vinous Trinity. Thank you for following along.
Tradition can be a starting point. Modernity, a way of continuing it.
🇬🇧 Series · The Vinous Trinity · Article 12/15 · Spain · ⏱ 5 min
In Spain, the family winery occupies a particular place in the viticultural landscape. Families cultivating the same plots for several generations, some of which have become international references, others working more discreetly, away from the spotlight.
Between transmission, rootedness and the will to innovate, the Spanish vineyard also tells a story of families.
🏠 The family winery: what sets it apart
The Spanish family winery is built above all on a logic of ownership, transmission and territorial rootedness.
Unlike large cooperatives that bring together numerous producers, or wine groups present across several regions, it is organised around a name, a family and a territory.
The link with the vineyard is generally very direct. Generations follow each other, plots are passed on, practices evolve. Decisions taken today can have consequences well beyond a single harvest.
This long-term vision is perhaps the true signature of these houses.
🍷 Rioja: the great wine dynasties
Rioja has given rise to some of Spain’s greatest viticultural dynasties.
Marqués de Murrieta belongs to this ancient history. From the 19th century, Don Luciano de Murrieta introduced an approach inspired by the Bordeaux model, helping to lay the foundations of modern Rioja wine.
López de Heredia, founded in Haro from 1877, represents another expression of this tradition. The house remains today one of the rare historic family wineries of the DOCa Rioja.
More recent, Bodegas Muga, founded in 1932, embodies the same family continuity. Three generations of the Muga family have followed each other at the winery, with a philosophy seeking to combine artisan tradition and openness toward the future.
Traditional Rioja remains associated with extended ageing and the use of oak, particularly American, with profiles that can develop notes of vanilla, leather and evolved fruit.
But another Rioja has developed in parallel.
Artadi, whose Lacalle y Laorden family took the helm in 1992, champions an approach based on plot identity and respect for the vineyard. Remírez de Ganuza, founded in 1989, has introduced various innovations in viticulture and winemaking.
Two visions can coexist within the same appellation: fidelity to historic codes and the search for a more plot-based, contemporary expression.
It is precisely this diversity that makes Rioja impossible to sum up in a single sentence.
🌊 Galicia: the new Albarino families
The Rías Baixas tells another story.
In the Val do Salnés, small farms and family work have long occupied an essential place. The creation of the Rías Baixas Denominación de Origen in 1988 accompanied the region’s professionalisation and quality upgrade.
Some families played a determining role in this evolution.
Pazo de Señorans was acquired in 1979 by Marisol Bueno and Javier Mareque. The family subsequently contributed to gaining recognition for Albariño’s ageing potential and to the development of the new appellation.
Do Ferreiro, founded by Gerardo Méndez, is another emblematic family story. The next generation continued work around old vines and the identity of the various Salnés terroirs. Some of its Albariños are capable of evolving for ten years or more in bottle.
Zárate goes even further in this notion of transmission. The family has cultivated its own vineyards for several generations and works particularly with old plots. Eulogio Pomares, now at the head of the estate, represents this new generation of Galician winemakers trained outside before returning to work on the family heritage.
Galicia is no longer associated solely with young, aromatic whites.
Albariño can also be a wine for ageing, gaining in complexity and depth with time.
🔴 Ribera del Duero: modernity and tradition
Ribera del Duero is much more recent in its official organisation than Rioja, with the Denominación de Origen created in 1982.
But its history already includes some mythical names.
Vega Sicilia, founded in 1864, is the absolute reference. The winery has belonged to the Álvarez family since 1982 and remains one of the great benchmarks of Spanish wine. Its Único has become one of the iconic great wines of the peninsula.
Around this monument, a new generation of producers has contributed to transforming the image of the region.
Aalto, founded in 1999 by Mariano García and Javier Zaccagnini, was built around Tinto Fino and old vines spread across several municipalities. The Masaveu and Nozaleda families later joined the project in 2006.
Dominio de Pingus, created by Peter Sisseck in 1995, belongs more to this generation of personal, high-precision projects than to the classic definition of a family winery.
This distinction matters: Spanish renewal does not come solely from historic families. It also comes from winemakers who chose to settle in a region, understand its old vines and offer a new reading of them.
🆕 The new generation: between heritage and rupture
Across Spain, the same question is now being asked.
What to do with the heritage received?
Some heirs choose to continue exactly the work of their parents and grandparents. Others return after studying or working in Bordeaux, Dijon or other great wine regions and wish to progressively modify the estate’s practices.
Less new wood, more plot-based work, a search for freshness, reduced inputs, a return to certain traditional methods or experimentation around yeasts and fermentations: the paths are numerous.
There is no single definition of modernity.
For some families, preserving tradition is already a form of innovation. For others, evolving practices is the best way to remain faithful to the terroir.
☀️ The South: forgotten families making a comeback
Spanish renewal is not limited to the great historic appellations.
In the Sierra de Gredos, in central Spain, young winemakers and small families are rediscovering old Garnacha vines planted on granite soils, often at high altitude.
The region is characterised by small-scale viticulture, numerous plots of very small surface area and a new generation of family wineries working particularly with old Garnacha and Albillo Real vines.
In Andalusia too, certain producers are seeking to move beyond traditional representations of the regional vineyard. Alongside the great historic wines of Jerez and Montilla-Moriles, new projects explore other expressions of the climate, soils and Andalusian varieties.
The terroirs are there. The old vines too.
Sometimes it simply took a different way of looking at them.
A philosophy of the long term
What ultimately unites these wineries is not their size, their prestige or even their wine style.
It is their relationship with time.
A vineyard that is transmitted.
A plot that continues to be worked because the previous generations did so before us.
A winery built to last.
Decisions taken today with the conviction that their consequences will be visible in ten, twenty or thirty years.
This logic is not that of a simple investment.
It is closer to a living heritage.
And it is perhaps there that the singularity of Spanish family wineries lies: they are not simply seeking to produce wine.
They are seeking to transmit a story.
A family winery is not measured in bottles produced. It is measured in generations transmitted.
🇬🇧 Series · The Vinous Trinity · Article 7/15 · France · ⏱ 5 min
In France, grape varieties are not simply types of grape. They are characters, each with its own personality, its preferred soils, its infinite variations depending on the land and the winemaker. Syrah, Grenache, Chenin Blanc, Pinot Noir, Chardonnay, Riesling, Gamay: every one of these names tells a story of soil, climate and tradition. Together, they form a palette no other wine nation can match.
Pinot Noir is perhaps the most difficult grape variety in the world to master. Thin skin, light tannins, extraordinary sensitivity to terroir: it expresses with remarkable precision the differences between parcels sometimes separated by just a few dozen metres. In Burgundy, it produces wines of finesse, elegance and aromatic complexity (cherry, raspberry, flowers, undergrowth, tobacco with age) that have forged its worldwide reputation. But Burgundian Pinot Noir is not limited to inaccessible grands crus: a village Bourgogne or a Côte de Nuits-Villages from an artisan winemaker between €18 and €30 can deliver a remarkable experience. It also thrives in Alsace, Champagne and Savoie.
🟡 Chardonnay · the white of all terroirs
Chardonnay is the most widely planted white grape variety in the world, but it is in Burgundy that it reaches its highest expression. From the Côte de Beaune (Meursault, Puligny-Montrachet, Chassagne-Montrachet) to taut, mineral Chablis, from fruity, affordable Mâcon-Villages to Champagne where it forms the base of Blancs de Blancs, Chardonnay covers an extraordinary range of styles. Its initial neutrality makes it a chameleon grape: it takes on the imprint of terroir and winemaker with remarkable fidelity. A Chablis Premier Cru or a Mâcon-Uchizy from an artisan producer between €12 and €22: wines of real class at reasonable prices.
🔴 Cabernet Sauvignon & Merlot · the Bordeaux tandem
In Bordeaux, blending is never accidental. Cabernet Sauvignon (structure, firm tannins, longevity, blackcurrant, cedar) and Merlot (roundness, ripe red fruits, earlier accessibility) complement each other with a logic that defined the concept of fine wine for the entire world. The left bank (Médoc, Graves) favours Cabernet Sauvignon on its well-drained gravels. The right bank (Saint-Émilion, Pomerol) favours Merlot on its cooler clays. The real secret: hundreds of artisan estates produce increasingly high-quality Bordeaux at €10-18, often from old vines on remarkable terroirs.
🔴 Syrah · the nobility of the northern Rhône
On the steep granites of Côte-Rôtie, Hermitage or Cornas, Syrah reaches a level of expression that few grape varieties in the world can match: violet, black olive, white pepper, smoke, leather, liquorice. Wines of striking power and depth, capable of ageing 20 to 30 years. What makes Rhône Syrah unique is a long winemaking history, a marked climate and particularly demanding granite terroirs. In Crozes-Hermitage or Saint-Joseph, more accessible neighbours, remarkable Syrahs can be found between €12 and €20. It also succeeds in Languedoc and Provence, with looser, fruitier expressions.
🔴 Grenache · the generosity of the deep South
Originally from Spain (Garnacha), naturalised French in the southern Rhône and Languedoc, Grenache is the sunshine grape. It finds in Châteauneuf-du-Pape, on its terraces of rounded stones, one of its most emblematic French expressions, producing wines of remarkable generosity, warmth and spiced complexity. But it appears everywhere across the south of France: in rosé in Provence, in sweet natural wines (Banyuls, Maury, Rasteau), in Languedoc where century-old vines often yield the country’s best value-for-money. A Rasteau or Gigondas from an artisan winemaker at €12-18: southern generosity at an honest price.
🟡 Chenin Blanc · the Loire’s chameleon
Chenin Blanc is perhaps one of the most versatile white grape varieties in France. From the Loire Valley, it produces dry wines of striking tension and minerality (Savannières), fresh and complex off-dry wines (Vouvray), sweet wines of astonishing aromatic richness (Coteaux du Layon, Bonnezeaux) and remarkable sparkling wines (Vouvray pétillant, Crémant de Loire). Its naturally high acidity allows it to age 30, 40, even 50 years while retaining intact freshness. A dry Vouvray or an Anjou blanc from a winemaker between €10 and €16 can reveal astonishing complexity with a few years in the cellar.
🟡 Riesling & Gewurztraminer · two of Alsace’s great grape varieties
Alsace has the rare distinction of labelling wines by grape variety, and two dominate. Riesling, mineral, taut, citrus with petrol notes emerging with age, is one of France’s greatest dry whites, capable of exceptional longevity on the finest terroirs of the wine route. Gewurztraminer, at the opposite extreme, is flamboyant and opulent: rose, lychee, spice, ginger. Both can range from bone-dry to late harvest, up to Sélections de Grains Nobles, the equivalent of the world’s greatest sweet wines. Exceptional wines, often undervalued relative to their quality.
🔴 Gamay · the unloved grape having its moment
Long confined to the image of Beaujolais Nouveau, a marketing product drunk in November and forgotten by December, Gamay is now at the heart of a worldwide enthusiasm for light, fresh, easy-drinking wines. On the granites of Beaujolais, it produces the 10 crus explored in the previous article. But Gamay also grows in Touraine (Touraine Gamay, fresh and fruity), in Auvergne (Côtes d’Auvergne, often remarkable at under €10), in Savoie. A new generation of winemakers vinifies it with renewed finesse, gentler extraction, more precise ageing. A grape that turns out to have real depth.
The inimitable · what these grape varieties share
What sets many French grape varieties apart, including some now planted worldwide like Chardonnay, Cabernet Sauvignon or Merlot, is their capacity to produce profoundly different expressions depending on their territory. Savagnin from Jura, Mondeuse from Savoie, Romorantin from the Loire, Nielluccio from Corsica, Mourvèdre from Bandol: grape varieties that cannot be reproduced anywhere else with the same results. This combination, grape variety × terroir × tradition, is what makes France a unique wine country. Not because its wines are systematically the best in the world, but because they are irreplaceable.
A grape variety doesn’t lie. It tells the story of the soil that gave it birth, if the winemaker knows how to listen.
