Winemaker Notes
#10 Wine Spectator Top 100 of 2021
Deep, dark and dense red with an intense nose of red and black berries, spice. The palate is a beautiful composition, silky tannins, power and elegance. Overall, the wine is expressive, noble and complete.
Professional Ratings
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Wine Enthusiast
The flagship wine of de Nalys sourced from the famed La Crau vineyard, this powerful, complex red highlights Grenache augmented by Syrah, Mourvèdre, Counoise and Vacarèse. Matured partially in oak, it offers black-plum flavors muted by shades of earth, sun-scorched garrigue and a lingering vein of salty minerality. While soft in tannin, the wine needs time to tease out its smoky, stony nuances. Drink 2028–2040.
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Wine & Spirits
This is the first vintage of Nalys that Philippe Guigal saw through from budbreak to bottling, after having purchased the estate in July 2017. He blends it from all the estate’s vineyards—the sandstone-clay of Nalys; the high, sandy, alluvial plateau of Bois Sénéchal; and the galet-covered La Crau, which makes up 50 percent of this blend. Fermented in oak vats, then aged 18 months in oak (30 percent) and concrete, it’s a regal, elegant Châteauneuf, plush in texture and alluring in its scents of wood, berries and earth. The interplay of tart and sweet fruit gives the wine lift and movement and echoes the dichotomy of brisk acidity and firm tannins. You could decant this now, enjoying its fresh elegance with a steak dinner, or wait another decade to see what details time will bring.
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Wine Spectator
A bright savory note leads off this red, followed quickly by sanguine and bay leaf accents, all melding nicely with the core of steeped blackberry, raspberry and plum fruit flavors as they move through the rich, licorice root–tinged finish.
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James Suckling
Aromas of blackberry, cocoa, black cherry and a hint of cedar. Full-bodied with slightly chewy tannins. Tannins and fruit are very nicely integrated with real composure and structure. Focused and succinct. Coffee and plum. This will age very nicely. 59% grenache, 32% syrah, 5% mourvedre, 3% counoise, 1% vacarese. Drink or hold.
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Jeb Dunnuck
Lastly, the 2018 Châteauneuf Du Pape Grand Vin is both deeper and richer, with a ruby/purple hue, medium to full-bodied aromas and flavors of black raspberries, ripe black cherries, roasted garrigue, and violet, soft tannins, no hard edges, and outstanding length. It shows the more rounded, charming style of the vintage but has terrific purity, as well as concentration. It’s going to keep for 10-12 years. Best after 2022.
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Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
The full-bodied 2018 Chateauneuf du Pape Grand Vin delivers plenty of bold raspberry and blueberry notes. It's almost creamy across the mid-palate but turns a bit more open-knit and coarser-textured on the lingering finish. Still, it's a delicious effort, well worth drinking over the next 10–15 years.
Since their very first vintage bottled under the Guigal name, in 1946, the Guigal family has produced a Chateauneuf-du-Pape. The terroirs of Nalys realize a dream spanning three generations to join this leading prestigious and historic appellation. A property of 125 contiguous acres, Nalys is comprised of three spectacular plots within three of the best vineyards in the appellation: the famous “La Crau”, Nalys, and “Bois Sénéchal”. Already listed in regional land registers at the end of the 16th century, Chateau de Nalys is one of the oldest properties in the appellation, and begins a new chapter in the hands of Guigal.
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.