Vidal-Fleury French Rhône Tasting
Friday November 22, 2024 4:00 PM - 6:00 PM
We are excited to welcome our VIP Bastien Lartigue who literally grew up at Vidal-Fleury with his father working at the winery for the last few decades. Exquisite examples of wines from the Rhône valley, Vidal-Fleury is a benchmark producer we will taste and explore. We will be pouring a glorious Condrieu white; a tasty Côtes-du-Rhône red; an impressive Châteauneuf-du-Pape; and a wonderfully fresh, charming and perfectly sweet Muscat Beaumes de Venise.
Founded in 1781, Vidal-Fleury is the Rhône Valley’s oldest continuing winery. Thomas Jefferson’s visit in 1787 was its first contact with the United States; he called the wines “justly celebrated”. During the 1890s, Gustave Vidal married a daughter of the Fleury family. Together they replanted the vineyard following the phylloxera outbreak. Then, in the 1920s, the House expanded into other wine-growing regions throughout the Rhône Valley. In 1984, the famed Guigal estate acquired the company. This step was a logical continuation for the Vidal-Fleury and Guigal families, who had always worked together. Indeed, Etienne Guigal (Marcel’s father) was hired as a vine-grower and cellar master by Joseph Vidal-Fleury in 1924. When the Vidal-Fleury family decided to sell the House, they naturally turned to the Guigal family. As result, the company remains family-run. Vidal-Fleury is managed in absolute independence with its own winemaking, logistics and commercial team.
In 2006 Vidal-Fleury began investing to modernize its winery facilities, installing state-of-the-art technology; in 2008, it built a new cellar specifically dedicated to maturing the wines. In addition, Vidal-Fleury’s vineyards are overseen with 100% self-sustaining management practices. Long considered one of the most respected producers in the Rhône Valley, Vidal-Fleury carries on under the watchful management of Head Winemaker Guy Sarton du Jonchay.