Françoise (winemaker), Didier & Béatrice

At the end of the 19th Century, Gratien Mayard considered leaving for the United States after the phylloxera crisis, but decided to stay in France, and today the fifth generation of the family - Didier, Françoise and Béatrice - look after 43 hectares in Chateauneuf-du-Pape. The domaine has about forty parcels spread across the entire appellation including two large plots: one measuring 21 hectares to the south of the appellation, the other 8 hectares on the Crau plateau to the northeast.

The estate is fully committed to environmentally-friendly sustainable agriculture, with their main focus firmly on the terroir. Rather than using chemical fertilizers and weed killers, they work the soil with machines and put in a great amount of manual labor at each stage of the vines’ growth cycle. 

Robert Parker comments in the October 2010 Wine Advocate that "Francoise Mayard and her sister, Beatrice, are two of the many women who are in positions of power managing Chateauneuf-du-Pape estates…their 2009s are extremely strong efforts. All three 2009s have the potential to turn out as well as the 2007s, the finest vintage yet produced in terms of high quality."