The renovation of our cellars finally begins!

After nearly two years of planning, the renovation work on La Falaise has finally begun. We plan to restore this 16th Century winery to its former glory and bring it into the 21st century by adding glass dividing walls so we can have a separate barrel cellar, professional tasting room, office and small shop.

Since we starting work we’ve uncovered three massive wine tanks buried into the ground and we plan to leave these as complete as possible and to build a mezzanine floor above them for our office.

The building is named after the famous cliff (“falaise”) that surrounds the village and 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.

All being well, we’ll be open in May. Not sure which year, but hopefully this one ;-) !

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