The Starry Night, c.1889

Vincent van Gogh, 1853-1890

Merlot, Pay d’Oc. France.

The edges of the canvas of the Starry Night are said to represent the dimensions of Van Gogh’s bedroom window. We see the church steeple in the town below, and near to us the top of a large cypress tree. The thickly textured pigment carves out bright spaces for the stars and a glowing moon in a swirling sky, defined and exaggerated in a frenzy of paint.

The Starry Night Merlot comes from great terroirs located on the eastern part of the appellation, where soils are composed of silt and clay. These specifics Merlot plots are planted along the Canal du Midi. Here, the terroir is very well adapted to the Merlot varietal, as it needs regular watering and fresh nights to express itself at its best. Indeed, silt and clay tend to retain and provide enough water during the summer period. The vine-yard is also selected according to sun exposure, as Merlot needs enough sunlight to reach full ripeness.

To see the original of this image visit the Museum of Modern Art in New York.

The license fee’s we pay to use this image help ensure that future generations are able to enjoy this work as we do today.

This wine comes from a land full of history. It is produced in the Southern French Languedoc-Roussillon, over four departments along the Mediterranean coast. Here, the northern mountains of the Pyrenees and the Cevennes embrace the vineyards of the Pays d’Oc like an amphitheatre. Thanks to a heritage of over 2600 years of winemaking traditions and a patchwork of climates, reliefs and soils, this region is home to a diversity of extraordinary wines.

To craft this wine, our experts mix traditional French wine-making techniques with new modern wine-making methods to create a ripe and juicy red wine. After harvest, part of the crop goes through hot skin contact maceration in order to enhance the fruit aromas, extract colour and tannins. The rest of the grapes are destemmed and sent to a traditional maceration for about two weeks. At the end of the process a small part of the wine is aged under the influence of American oak for 5 months. The wine is blended before bottling.