Mirabeau takes over 16th century former winery

This is the most exciting news since Mirabeau day 1! We have just taken possession of one of the most historic buildings in our village, which will become headquarters for Mirabeau from next year. It’s a big restoration project and we’ve already started exploring the possibilities of this amazing building with an architect. 

It’s proving quite hard to accurately date the this former winery but records show it already existed in 1600. It is one of the most prominent locations in Cotignac, overlooking the main cours and next to the famous old hotel ‘Lou Calen’. The building has two floors; the ground floor (where we will be) was most most recently a garage, but during it’s lifetime it has been a winery, tannery and probably a ‘grainage’ (for storing grain).  Upstairs was most recently a restaurant called ‘La Falaise’ (named after the famous cliff that provides the beautiful backdrop to Cotignac) but it’s been largely empty for the past 20 years. During its life it has had many guises – a chapel (for the ‘penitence blancs’), a casino, a night club and a cinema before it became a restaurant in the 1970s. The entire building has been sadly neglected for at least the past 10 years and it will be quite a task getting it onto shape.

The walls are super-thick, up to 2m deep (over 6 ft) and the beautiful arched ceilings will make a perfect cellar environment. The ground floor runs under the large house to the left and is 26m in length and 6.4m wide (86ft x 20ft). The entire building will be restored over the next few years and we will create a showroom for our international clients as well as a barrel cellar, an office, a formal tasting area as well as a small shop.

Being a building of historical importance, planning permission will take 6-8 months. All being well we’ll be open for next summer (fingers crossed). We’ll keep you posted!

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