Domaine Isabel Ferrando Chateauneuf-du-Pape Colombis
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I was born in Carpentras, at the foot of Mont Ventoux. Rocked by the howling mistral and the singing cicadas. From my father, born in Algeria, I inherited the flavors of the orient. Honey, cinnamon, saffron, cumin, anything fried like flowers and sardines...but also the taste for hot weather. From my mother, born in Provence, I can remember perfumes of carnations, wild roses, honeysuckle, and garden roses with a sensual musky scent. Her cooking which had an unexpected sweetness, red and yellow peppers, September black cherries pecked by sparrows, yellow figs that tasted like honey, brown walnuts with an intense nutty taste, and juicy pomegranates that stained your lips. When I announced to my family that I wanted to become a winemaker it was like a violent thunderstorm in the sky of Provence. <> My parents question was legitimate. But how could I explain the energy calling me to the vines, my obsession to find the rhythm of the seasons, the desire for silence, freedom, and more than anything the dream of creating. Again and again creating a new interpretation of Provencal cooking, sun drenched flavors, from the happy table of my childhood.It will be Chateauneuf du Pape or nothing! At the birth of my only child in 1997, I knew that it was essential for me to go home. I was living a very comfortable life working as a senior manager for a large bank. The project seemed improbable, change my life for a more adventurous one, that turns out to be much more beautiful. Yes. But how does one become a winemaker without parents in the business, without vineyards and a cellar? The answer for me was returning to the school for apprentice winemakers in Carpentras , then after two painstaking years of searching in vain << It will be Chateauneuf du Pape or nothing!>> Because it was here, in the heart of the Valley du Rhone that I dreamed of settling. It would take the talent and patience of my husband to make this dream come true in the fall of 2002. In the horror and desolation of the worst floods the region has ever known, the adventure has become reality. - Isabel Ferrando