Goings-on

REMEMBERING PIERRE-MARIE CLAPE

AUGUST 2025

Pierre-Marie Clape was a couple of months younger than me, so we met when we were both supposedly promising young men in our early twenties. However, he was a shadowy presence behind his father Auguste, since the domaine could not support two family members. Pierre instead became a teacher of mechanical engineering in Valence across the River, but chipped in on plenty of seasonal tasks in the vineyard and cellar in the meantime.

It was 1989, aged 38, when he joined Auguste. That vintage, and the 1990 and 1991 were all glorious successes, while the 1990s showed the continuity that every family domaine hopes for, the characteristic vintage accuracy shown each year – a tight as a drum, iron-like 1995, a tender 1997, a richly endowed 1999, for instance. He had plenty to learn, but assumed the role of receiving the family baton from his father’s large presence with serenity.

When I embarked on The Wines of the Northern Rhône in 2003, it was Pierre who accompanied me around the ledges and slopes of Cornas, including going along the plain towards the River to obtain the best possible perspective of an appellation that he knew intimately.

I had the feeling that he loved being in the vineyards more than anything else, and it was poignant indeed when his cancer illness prevented him from visiting or saying adieu to them. Olivier organised drone footage to show him in his final days, which was a great comfort.

With his always tousled hair and baggy jeans, wallet in the back pocket, he never really left behind the Teacher look, even when a full time man of the soil. He formed a discreet, private partnership with his quietly smiling wife Geneviève, both of them wonderfully steady, finely resolute, never hurried. The twinkle in Pierre’s eye gave the clue to a sometimes sharp sense of humour, most often concerning the wayward ways of the character under discussion.

His orbit centred around Cornas – like his father, it was the village, the community, the wellbeing of the appellation. A selfless President of the Syndicat des Vignerons for many years, he had his finger on the pulse about all sorts of issues, not frightened to try to innovate in terms of vineyard treatments, his gravelly voice commanding respect in many a laborious meeting.

At the annual Cornas Marché in December, he would faithfully tend the Domaine Clape stand, even if there was only a drop of wine to sell. These days, it’s more often an employee fronting up a high profile domaine - Pierre would have none of that.

He was delighted when Olivier joined the domaine, that pride and pleasure expressed in latent terms, as he skilfully allowed his son to take on responsibilities and measures that kept the domaine moving ahead, including the increased attention paid to the Saint-Péray, and the extended commitment to tending the vineyards and their soils.

His modesty when praised was exceptional, but you could tell that he was curious to know one’s reaction to any of the contributors to the blend, whether it was the youngest vines or the delights of Sabarotte or Reynards. Tasting with him and Olivier has always been a treat, the fall of the words precise and unadorned.

When in Paris for the occasional promotional events on behalf of the Rhône, he and Geneviève would explore restaurants that often listed their wine, respecting the bond between restaurateur and vigneron that used to be widespread when we were young. He would give a calm appraisal of each venue if asked.

Personally, I recall a supreme evening at Cachette in Valence several years ago, when we picked our way through the extensive menu that Masa had proposed for us, both of us highly appreciative of what was set before us, course after course. It was always in such circumstances that Pierre would hand me the wine list and ask “what would you like to drink?”

When I look back on the decades of Domaine Clape since the 1970s, the unspoilt quality of the vignerons comes through in the wines. With all the usual vicissitudes of daily life, that is an incredible achievement: the Clape hand on the tiller of the good ship Cornas, their estate wines standing up to scrutiny years later, never having undergone undue experimentation or novelty for its own sake. I peer at old bottles in my cellar, and there is now an almost spiritual aura surrounding them.

Three days before he died, he attended a lunch set up by Oliver and the family, and also by his old friends the very genial Jean Gabert, for decades in charge of Inter-Rhône in the North, Stéphane Robert of Domaine du Tunnel, and Laurent Courbis of Domaine Courbis, the family with whom the Clapes jointly bought the Noël Verset holding on Sabarotte. He drank a little Saint-Péray and Cornas, and commented upon the wines. That was his farewell, in the lap of friendship and love, with the wines he loved.

Rest in Peace, mon ami.