Winemaker Notes
A beautiful dark color, the nose shows pretty notes of red fruit, raspberries, wildstrawberries, spices, and garrigue. The palate is powerful, full, with great finesse.The tannins are velvety and the finish has great length.
Professional Ratings
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James Suckling
Abundant, rich and ripe red fruit with lightly spiced pastry and quite brambly complexity. The palate has a super fleshy, bold and upfront-tannin shape. Fresh and easy.
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Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
Still not yet bottled for my June visit (it was scheduled to be bottled at the end of the month), the final blend of the 2017 Cotes du Rhone Coudoulet de Beaucastel was showing plenty of garrigue and dried-spice notes layered over cherry fruit. Full-bodied, silky textured and long on the finish, it should drink well for a decade or more. Range: 90-92
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Wine Enthusiast
While full bodied and plump, this perfumed red offers bright, sunny layers of crisp red cherry and plum marked by lovely twists of tart cassis and raspberry. A bright, sunny wine, it finishes on fine, smooth tannins and hints of crushed earth and sage. Immediately approachable the wine should drink well through 2024.
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Jeb Dunnuck
The 2017 Côtes Du Rhône Coudoulet De Beaucastel is a textbook example of this cuvée, and while it tends to be a relatively expensive Côtes Du Rhône, it merits the price. Complex garrigue, ground pepper, and earthy dark fruits all flow to a medium to full-bodied wine that has a polished, elegant texture as well as the sunny, Provençal style of the vintage. It’s capable of lasting for 15 years or more.
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Wine Spectator
Juicy and direct, with a core of blackberry and plum fruit, laced with a singed alder thread and backed by a dusting of garrigue on the finish, which reveals a nice tug of dark earth. Should open up with some cellaring. Best from 2020 through 2028.
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.
Typically thought of as a baby Chateâuneuf-du-Pape, the term Côtes du Rhône actually doesn’t merely apply to the flatter outskirts of the major southern Rhône appellations, it also includes the fringes of well-respected northern Rhône appellations. White wines can be produced under the appellation name, but very little is actually made.
The region offers some of the best values in France and even some first-rate and age-worthy reds. Red wine varieties include most of the Chateâuneuf-du-Pape varieties like Grenache, Syrah, Mourvedre, Cinsault, and Counoise, as well as Carignan. White grapes grown include Grenache blanc, Roussanne and Viognier, among others.