Domaine Clos Lapeyre

Jurançon winemaker Jean-Bernard Larrieu is head of the family-owned Clos Lapeyre (no relation to Domaines Lapeyre Guilhemas). He lives just down the road from the domaine with his wife and two daughters with whom he insists on speaking the local patois or dialect. The winery has been in existence since the first World War at which time the Larrieu family made more money from the sale of peaches and cows than from wine. Later in the 1960s more emphasis was placed on grapes which were sold to the local coopérative. The bulk of the estate's money however came from strawberries grown on the property. In the early 1970s the family were the first to replant their vines on terraces something that has now become common in Jurançon. This beautiful system in which vines are planted in a semicircle—like an amphitheater—guarantees better exposure to the sun encouraging further ripeness of late-harvest crops.