A wine making family

The Croce-Spinelli family continue a familial tradition of four generations winemakers. Today, Richard and Hélène Croce-Spinelli with their son Florent and their daughter Mathilde, manage the Château Saint-Esprit estate with passion.

1st generation - Philippe Pares

A successful music producer and passionate about wine, Philippe purchased a winery in Provence in the early 1950’s. As the pre-cursor to four generations winemakers in the Croce-Spinelli family, he also initiated a great interest for Arts and Culture, highly represented in the various events organised today at Château Saint-Esprit.

2nd generation - Gisèle & Daniel Crocé-Spinelli

In 1955, Daniel and Gisèle took over and developed the family winery focusing on fine wine production. They then developed the vineyard, and purchased a 25 hectare property with a unique Terroir near Draguignan.

Since then, Château Saint-Esprit vineyard remains, the essence of the Croce-Spinelli family wines.

3rd generation

Richard Crocé-Spinelli – Director and Head Winemaker

Richard grew up with the same family passion for wine. After 10 vintages working with his father in the family winery learning the intergenerational knowledge, Richard took over and became the Head Winemaker. With a winemaking vision which encompasses the great attention to the work in the vineyard and his 30 vintages of experience, Richard reveals, in his wines, the exceptional potential of Château Saint-Esprit Terroir.

Hélène Crocé-Spinelli – Events and Wine Tourism Manager

Since 2012, following Hélène’s vision, the Croce-Spinelli family have developed tourism facilities at the property. Helene plans and coordinates bespoke events, held at Château Saint-Esprit. With an emphasis on Arts and Culture, she manages the Wine Tourism, organising various events and receptions always with the will of sharing our idyllic domain.

4th generation

Mathilde Crocé-Spinelli – Vineyard Manager

With the same family passion for wine, Mathilde represents the next generation of the Croce-Spinelli family and of Château Saint-Esprit wines.
Alike her father, who taught her the basics of wine making, pushes her to follow his way. Thus, with an eye for innovation, Mathilde is now responsible of the vineyard and the winemaking.

Florent Crocé-Spinelli – Managing Director

Passionate about wine, after extensive experiences in the wine industry overseas, learning further skills and knowledge, his love for Provence and for his family ancestral vineyard pushed him to come back home. Thus, after working in France and Australia for reputable wine groups, Florent now leads the commercial development at Château Saint-Esprit.

The Dog - Lewis - Responsible for security

Lewis is the ultimate guard of the vineyard during the grapes maturing period. His job is to keep out the wild bores, who love our delicious grapes.

Of course, from time to time, he cannot resist the taste of the maturing of berries.

His favourite grape varietal: the Grenache.

Vine growing and wine making

Vine growing and respect of the soil

The Château Saint-Esprit Terroir is a pearl to be polished every day. In order to enhance its greatest expression in the wine, we respect his soil by using zero herbicides nor pesticides thus preserving its microorganisms.
The choice of the grape varietals is essential in the quality and identity of a wine. Following the same philosophy of enhancing the Terroir expression, Château Saint-Esprit vineyard has great Provencal influence with its main varietals. Thus, our vineyard is planted with Grenache, Cinsault, Mourvedre, Syrah and Vermentino.
Of a mature age, with some parcel of more than sixty years old, our vines are treated with respect and praised with all the love they deserve.

Wine making serving the Terroir expression

The winemaking techniques chosen depend on the style of wine we are looking for, but this remains always at the service of the expression of the Terroir, true wine identity.
Richard and Mathilde Croce-Spinelli’s vision for winemaking holds a deep commitment to the Terroir and sustainable viticulture. Thus, they preserve and enhance the most typical characters and aromas contained in our grapes. The choice of aging is also made with this philosophy, and only a small proportion of new oak is used in aging our top-end wines. This aims to not affect a direct expression of a magnificent Terroir, bringing an extraordinary characteristic and identity to our wines.

Blending

Blending is an essential process of the quality and the wine identity. Adopting the same philosophy to preserve the Terroir expression, the blends in Château Saint-Esprit wines express, in chosen proportion, the great Provencal character of our vineyard.