Châteauneuf-du-Pape producer Guy Arnaud has been sued by his daughter in a row over the family’s 51-hectare estate.
Carole Perveyrie-Arnaud took legal action against her father for allegedly failing to pay £19,000 in wages while she and her husband worked on the land.
Arnaud owns one of the region’s largest vineyards, spread across Château Cabrières and Château Maucoil,
The year-and-a-half-long spat has allegedly appalled the local winemaking community.
‘The bad press splashes on everyone’, said one disgruntled local.
The feud began in 2008, after Perveyrie-Arnaud contacted the authorities claiming her father was violating appellation rules by buying wine from outside the area and putting the Châteauneuf-du-Pape label on the bottles.
Mr Arnaud ‘totally refuted’ the claim.
‘Carole [Perveyrie-Arnaud] has made some very grave claims. She denounced her own parents and claimed they doctored their barrels’, Mr Arnaud’s lawyer said.
Guy Arnaud had allegedly offered his three daughters a 17-hectare share of his estate, worth an estimated £7.5m each.
No charges were brought but Perveyrie-Arnaud was ceded the immediate rights to £3.5m worth of vineyards, the equivalent of 8 hectares.
‘She could have staked a claim for a lot more. She realised after signing the deal that she was the loser’, a source told Le Parisien newspaper.
A workers tribunal is due to announce the verdict on 24 February.
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Written by Lucy Shaw
