Family at war in Dallas-sur-Rhone

A bitter legal row – increasingly seen as a plot line straight out of the TV show Dallas – has flared up in one of France’s most famous fine wine regions.

One of Châteauneuf-du-Pape’s biggest wine makers, Guy Arnaud, and his daughter, Carole Perveyrie-Arnaud, are fighting over pay and property.

Last week, Carole and her husband sued Arnaud for a total of €22,000 in unpaid wages.

The root cause of the dispute can be traced to Arnaud’s decision to divide his 51 hectare property – which includes Chåteaux Cabrières and Maucoil – between his three daughters while he was still alive over a year and a half ago.

In accordance with Napoleonic Law each daughter would receive an equal share of the estate, which amounted to 17 hectares of vineyard for each daughter, with a value of €500,000 per hectare.

Two of the daughters were happy with the arrangement but Perveyrie-Arnaud, the third daughter, grew impatient and demanded immediate access to her share so that she could begin to cultivate it.

According to local newspaper Le Dauphin, Perveyrie-Arnaud “began to have doubts about the quality of wine produced on the family estates and suspected ‘tampering’ with the blends.”

Soon afterwards Perveyrie-Arnaud called customs and the police on suspicion that her father was violating AC laws and bottling wine from other vineyards as Chåteauneuf-du-Pape.

Her lawyer Christian Mazarian told Le Dauphin at the time: “My client saw, during the course of the morning, lorries unloading barrels and wine which should not have been there.”

The accusation was dropped the next day when no evidence of wrongdoing was discovered.

A few months later the family met to draw up a new contract and Perveyrie-Arnaud was awarded access to 8 hectares of vineyard with a value of €3.5 million.

However, once again this proved to be not enough and a source for Le Parisien noted: “She realised after signing the deal that she was the loser, that she had given up [rights] to lots of things, particularly as the family estate contains buildings.”

Following the court case last week, Perveyrie-Arnaud and her husband are threatening further legal action. A workers tribunal is set to reach a verdict on 24 February.

Rupert Millar, 28.01.2010