Les Caves Maillol – Introduction

When arriving in a new town in France, one of our first actions after settling in to our accomodation is to find out whether there is a natural wine shop or a natural wine bar that sells natural bottles that we can take away.

As we have mentioned in other postings on this site, one of our favourite cities in France is Perpignan which we visit due to the proximity of two of our suppliers, namely Mataburro, who supply delicious wines and La Guinelle from whom we buy amazing, high quality vinegars.

Perpignan is a good place to find natural wine as there are many bars that sell wine by the bottle. There is also a good bottle shop where you can find some very interesting wines, both from the local area and further afield.

Be aware that not all of the wines here are natural, however of the 1800 different bottles they have some 350 were natural and the staff are quite happy to show which ones are suitable for natural wine drinkers.

The name of this establishment is Les Caves Maillol and it is fairly central, being on cours François Palmarole which runs through the city behind the Promenade des Plantanes.

Once inside you will see a very solid range of wines including some of the sweet wines that are popular in this region. In fact, it is an excellent place to visit for this reason as they have an interesting collection of “Vins Doux Naturels” as you can see in the photo below.

But they have many more than sweet wines. During our visit we saw wines from Domain de l’Enclos, Chateau de Béru, Le Roc des Anges, Fabien Jouves and Tania and Vincent Carême to name but a few of the natural wine producers they have in stock.

On their Web site they reinforce the fact that we have mentioned above:

Les Caves Maillol, situées à Perpignan, proposent une sélection rigoureuse de plus de 1800 références, incluant des vins naturels, bio, et en biodynamie, ainsi que des vins conventionnels de qualité. Leur approche pédagogique permet de découvrir des vins minutieusement goûtés et sélectionnés, disponibles en boutique et en ligne. 

This translates roughly (because we did it!) as:

Caves Maillol, located in Perpignan, offers a carefully curated selection of over 1800 wines, including natural, organic, and biodynamic wines, as well as quality conventional wines. Their educational approach allows customers to discover meticulously tasted and selected wines, available in-store and online.

The other thing we noticed during our time in this establishment was just how much information is available about the wines.

You can see in the photo below that the wines are each accompanied by a useful description. Obviously, if you are not familiar with the french language you can either ask one of the staff (the woman who served us spoke very good English), or use your phone to do the translating for you.

Les Caves Maillol is defintely a place that is well worth visiting if you make it to Perpignan!

The address details are provided below:

Their Web address if you would like to check on their opening hours is here: Les Caves Maillol

In France, if you are visiting a restaurant or bottle shop or bar, it is always worth checking their Web site to make sure of their opening hours as the hours can vary in certain regions or due to local issues such as schools not opening on Wednesdays as just one example.

We have also included this venue in our story about wine shops and bars to visit throughout France here.