The Coulons have estate-bottled their wines since the early 1900s. In fact, Paul Coulon's father and grandfather were instrumental in creating the regulations of the Appellation Contrôlée system (Châteauneuf du Pape was France's first appellation contrôlée, in 1929). Detail oriented, meticulous to the point of perfectionism, visitors can peruse not only the informative Musée du Vin below their Rasteau vineyard, but detailed volumes for each vintage recording air temperatures, ground temperatures, rainfall, hours of sunlight, wind velocity and direction, grape size, fermentation temperatures, maceration times, and every other detail for each parcel of vines that they own. When the Institute Nationale d'Appellation d'Origine wanted to conduct experiments on the relationship of terroir to wine quality, they came to the Coulons for data. Paul and his wife Régine's sons, Daniel and Frédéric Coulon, are assuming more and more of the everyday duties, but clearly it is the charismatic, almost domineering Paul, with his charming but firm wife Régine, who set the tone for the family work ethic.
