Latest News

Aug 2008 "Deux Vignerons" Box 66

On August 9th we held a six-course gourmet dinner matched with a selection of our wines and those of Domaine de la Perdrix. It was a great opportunity to see how two neighbouring domaines can produce different but equally impressive wines and work together to showcase the Aspres region.

We put together a special case, called Box 66, of the eight wines featured at the dinner at  a 15% discount price of €66.00. A small number of these cases are still available at the winery.

July 2008 "Own Vine Club" a Vineyard Ownership Plan

 Old vines make more interesting wines. However, they don't have the high yields that cooperative grape growers want. We have the opportunity to save them to  make great wine rather than seeing them go to waste.

We've launched an "Own Vine Club" to allow you to participate in this plan. For a small annual subscription you can own part of these historic vineyards, help to preserve the landscape, and, best of all, drink the wine made from your own vines. Click here for more info.

June 2008 Short Gourmet Break in the Roussillon

We've teamed up with Mas San Julien and The French Tour Company to provide short wine and food holidays in this exciting, gourmet corner of France. See here for more details.

12/4/08 Reviews by Jamie Goode - the 2007 Glenfiddich Wine Writer of the year

Domaine Treloar ‘Tahi’ 2006 Côtes du Roussillon
Tight, dark, concentrated and quite tannic, this could do with a few years to become more approachable and is potentially very long-lived. Ripe dark fruits dominate, with a subtly roasted coffee oak edge and a bit of plummy bitterness on the finish. There’s a lot going for this wine .... I’d be fascinated to see how this wine will taste in a decade: I reckon it will be pretty serious. 93/100

Domaine Treloar One Block Grenache 2006 Vin de Pays d’Oc, France
This is quite a big wine, with sweet, lush, almost jammy blackberry and raspberry fruit, coupled with some spicy tannic structure. Good depth of flavour and ample fruit expression here: a satisfying, warm, food friendly wine. 89/100

23/3/08 VinArt 2008

VinArt was a huge success. We received around 150 visitors over the weekend and raised over €400 for cancer care charity. We will definitely be holding VinArt 2009, so if you missed out this time, put it in your diary now. We're also going to be doing another open day on May 3rd as part of the Roussillon Wine Festival.

Thanks to everyone who came. If you missed it, some of the art is still on display and we are open on Tuesday and Thursday afternoons.

Special thanks to all the artists who exhibited, to Maribelle, Ian, Rosy and her band for providing the ambiance musicale, to Laurence for preparing the canapes and babysitting our children and to Anne-Marie for helping us out during the event.

Click here for more photos of the event. You may even spot yourself!

23/2/08 The Blessing

When Father Mick, a Dublin priest, came for a wine tour and offered to bless the winery and vineyard, we thought he was joking. He was not. He'd brought his stole, The Book and Holy Water too. 

I have to admit, I'm not a religious person but I am quite spiritual (if you get my meaning) and found the Blessing very moving. For me it reconfirmed that , despite all the hard work, mountains of paperwork, financial hardship and marketing struggles, our passion and commitment to our chosen work will see us through. All we ask from the Almighty is encouragement.

28/8/07 The Harvest Begins

2007 has been a cooler year than last but an early, warm spring sees the grapes maturing at around the same time. The crop is down about 20-30% on last year due to cooler weather at flowering, a dry winter and our own interventions to reduce yields. The quality is very good. Although damp weather encouraged downy mildew earlier in the summer, we were able to keep it well under control and the long dry period before harvest has resulted in clean fruit with intense flavours that promise fine wines.

All the grapes are being picked by hand by our team of local workers and helpful friends. 

We try to keep to the advertised opening times but you may find us in the middle of picking, crushing or cleaning equipment!

12/07/07 Summer Art Exhibition

We are pleased to be exhibiting the original paintings and pastels by local artists Margret Dibdin and Ken Wheatley.

Margaret, a former science and drama teacher, studied at Bournmouth College of Art and Falmouth Fine Arts before lured to the beauty of  Arles-sur-Tech in 2001. Her art is inspired by nature and her love of colour and shape.

Ken trained at Edinburgh College of Art and worked as a set designer for film and TV all over the world for 35 years. Retiring to the Pyrenees-Orientales, he depicts the buildings and landscape of the area in watercolour and oils.

01-06-07 The First Bottling

The first of June was the date of our first ever bottling. An extremely stressful operation where all the year's hard work is realised. One mistake and everything can be ruined. To prepare for bottling we needed to stabilise the wine, design the labels, choose the corks, the bottles, the packaging and the capsules. We also couldn't forget to order the little things; pallets, cling-film and packaging tape.  Fortunately everything arrived on time and the bottling went smoothly. Four of our friends turned up to give us a hand too which helped enormously.

We bottled Muscat of Alexandria, Muscat de Rivesaltes, One Block Muscat and One Block Grenache, all from the 2006 vintage.

The labels were designed with the help of my friend Jon Harris of Harrisment Design.

07-05-07 Visit of Amersham Wine Club

The Amersham Wine Club visited us as part of their wine tour of the Languedoc-Roussillon with Vinetude. After a talk in the vineyards about Domaine Treloar's particular style of viticulture, in a high Tremontane wind, we retired to the winery to taste some of the wines matched with local produce.

We matched One Block Muscat with a medium aged goats cheese (chevre) and the Grenache with Bethmale, a rich cow's milk cheese from the Ariege. Both were specially chosen by Fromagier du Mas in Mas Guerido.

We then paired two wines with fresh hand-made chocolates from La Cabosse in Castelnau. Lemon milk chocolate with Three Peaks and then Ginger dark chocolate with Muscat de Rivesaltes. 

The response to the wines was amazing. Few people think red wine and chocolate go together but the chocolate shop had to sell their entire stock!

Most importantly, everyone had a really good time, including us.

23-04-07 Edinburgh School of Art

The photography students of the Edinburgh School of Art visited the vineyards and winery to take shots for their Roussillon Wine project with Nigel Bradley.

They enjoyed a picnic in the vines followed by a wine tasting and then took advantage of the old equipment and barrels in the winery. For us it was interesting to see the winery as a subject for art rather than just a facility for making wine.

16 Traverse de Thuir, 66300 Trouillas, Roussillon, France

phone : +33 (0)4 68 95 02 29     email : info@domainetreloar.com