Winemaker Notes
#87 Wine Spectator Top 100 of 2025
A beautiful purple-red color with brilliant highlights. On the nose, this Châteauneuf-du-Pape develops aromas of small red fruits. Its palate is full bodied, silky, and velvety.
Blend: 75% Grenache Noir, 11% Syrah, 11% Mourvèdre, 3% Cinsault, Vaccarèse & Counoise
Professional Ratings
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James Suckling
A well-crafted, vivid and bright blend of grenache, syrah and mourvedre. The nose shows aromas of red berries, dried herbs, dried thyme and charred bark. It's medium-bodied with fine, firm tannins. Lively and focused, with plenty of energy. Spicy finish. Try from 2025.
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Wine Spectator
Rich, spiced and beautifully textured, with fine-grained tannins guiding a beam of warm cherry and spices, all built around a graphite mineral spine. Inner freshness and purity keep tension through the luminous finish. Singed garrigue and sandalwood smoke echo on and on. Drink now through 2040.
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Decanter
Beautiful sense of freshness on the nose, then massively concentrated, with deep liquorice flavour and a savoury finish. Naturally big and muscular, tannins are a touch dry and fibrous, but should round out with time. Quite a beast! Should be good value for those looking for serious Châteauneuf bang for buck. This producer’s other cuvées this year are unapproachably massive and tannic, and need to be assessed in bottle before any reasonable judgement can be made.
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Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
The 2022 Châteauneuf du Pape Cuvée Tradition from Bosquet des Papes is a blend dominated by 75% Grenache Noir, complemented by 11% Syrah, 11% Mourvèdre and smaller parts of Cinsault, Vaccarèse and Counoise. Evoking aromas of raspberries, garrigue, blackberries, flowers and menthol, it's medium to full-bodied, enrobing and supple with bright acids and a delicate, velvety tannic frame, and it marries tension and charm to pleasing effect. The old vines of Grenache Noir are destemmed, and the wine is matured for 12 months across a combination of foudres (60%), large barrels (20%) and concrete tanks (20%).
Rating: 92+ -
Vinous
Coming in at eye level with the excellent 2020, the complex 2022 Châteauneuf-du-Pape Cuvée Tradition is game on. Licorice, raspberry compote, black cherry, garrigue and white pepper are all nicely delineated. Full-bodied and framed by ripe yet gently grippy tannins, the 2022 balances elevated flavor concentration with ample freshness. It aged for one year in a combination of foudres (60%), demi-muids (20%) and concrete tanks (20%).
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Jeb Dunnuck
The 2022 Châteauneuf Du Pape (75% Grenache, 11% Syrah, 11% Mourvèdre, and the rest Cinsault, Vaccarèse, and Counoise) is charming and upfront, with a beautifully perfumed, medium-bodied style that's very much in the profile of the vintage. Ripe, sun-kissed red fruits, Provençal spice, garrigue, and pressed flower notes all shine on the nose, and it's balanced, has soft tannins, and delivers outstanding length.
With bold fruit flavors and accents of sweet spice, Grenache, Syrah and Mourvèdre form the base of the classic Rhône Red Blend, while Carignan, Cinsault and Counoise often come in to play. Though they originated from France’s southern Rhône Valley, with some creative interpretation, Rhône blends have also become popular in other countries. Somm Secret—Putting their own local spin on the Rhône Red Blend, those from Priorat often include Merlot and Cabernet Sauvignon. In California, it is not uncommon to see Petite Sirah make an appearance.
Famous for its full-bodied, seductive and spicy reds with flavor and aroma characteristics reminiscent of black cherry, baked raspberry, garrigue, olive tapenade, lavender and baking spice, Châteauneuf-du-Pape is the leading sub-appellation of the southern Rhône River Valley. Large pebbles resembling river rocks, called "galets" in French, dominate most of the terrain. The stones hold heat and reflect it back up to the low-lying gobelet-trained vines. Though the galets are typical, they are not prominent in every vineyard. Chateau Rayas is the most obvious deviation with very sandy soil.
According to law, eighteen grape varieties are allowed in Châteauneuf-du-Pape and most wines are blends of some mix of these. For reds, Grenache is the star player with Mourvedre and Syrah coming typically second. Others used include Cinsault, Counoise and occasionally Muscardin, Vaccarèse, Picquepoul Noir and Terret Noir.
Only about 6-7% of wine from Châteauneuf-du-Pape is white wine. Blends and single-varietal bottlings are typically based on the soft and floral Grenache Blanc but Clairette, Bourboulenc and Roussanne are grown with some significance.
The wine of Chateauneuf-du-Pape takes its name from the relocation of the papal court to Avignon. The lore says that after moving in 1309, Pope Clément V (after whom Chateau Pape-Clément in Pessac-Léognan is named) ordered that vines were planted. But it was actually his successor, John XXII, who established the vineyards. The name however, Chateauneuf-du-Pape, translated as "the pope's new castle," didn’t really stick until the 19th century.