Winemaker Notes
The Chateau de St. Cosme Gigondas displays a deep ruby color with enticing aromas of gingerbread, blackberry, and white pepper. The palate offers ample freshness, sweet tannins, and a full bodied, lingering texture. Perfect with meat loaf and roasted fingerling potatoes.
Blend: 70% Grenache - 14% Syrah – 15% Mourvèdre - 1% Cinsault.
Professional Ratings
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James Suckling
Wow. This has such attractive dark plums and berries with chocolate and cocoa, as well as ripe red and dark cherries. The complexity and depth is striking here. The palate carries so much flavor and so much detail. So lush. Rich dark fruit, cocoa and red-cherry pip to close. Drink over the next decade or more. This has plenty in the tank
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Jeb Dunnuck
Moving back south, the 2017 Gigondas is another terrific vintage for this cuvée, and it’s a quintessential expression of Saint Cosme. Ground herbs, graphite, gunpowder, pepper, black raspberries, and cassis all emerge from this full-bodied, ripe, polished Gigondas. With solid concentration, building yet ripe tannins, and a great finish, you’ll be thrilled to have a case in the cellar.
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Wine Spectator
This offers a mix of dark cherry, currant and blackberry compote flavors, scored liberally with singed alder, dried sage and warm earth accents through the finish. A flash of chestnut at the very end keeps this in the old-school camp. Solid for the vintage. Best from 2022 through 2035
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Decanter
Whole-cluster fruit from limestone, marl and Miocene sand soils is fermented in concrete with indigenous yeasts. It's then aged 70% in barrel, 20% new, with the remaining 30% in concrete. It has a very oaky aromatic profile at this early stage, but it's joined by a lovely herbal aspect from the stems. Medium to full-bodied, the fruit has a vibrant freshness and the acidity is pretty marked, while the tannins are massy but ripe and harmonious. Long finish.
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Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
Loaded with notes of black olives and black cherries, the full-bodied 2017 Gigondas is rich and velvety in the mouth. I'm not sure it's quite as good as the 2018, but it's certainly no slouch, with a long, silky finish that picks up a hint of cocoa.
Rating: 92+
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Wine Enthusiast
Velvety and pleasantly weighty, this is an opulent blend of 70% Grenache, 14% Syrah, 15% Mourvèdre and 1% Cinsault. It’s a fleshy, warming wine with bold flavors of dried strawberry and black-cherry preserve, but also fiery accents of pepper, licorice and thyme. Firm, penetrating tannins extend on the finish.
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.
The Southern Rhône region of Gigondas extends northwest from the notably jagged wall of mountains called the Dentelles di Montmirail, whose highest point climbs to about 2,600 feet. The region and its wines have much in common with the neighboring Chateauneuf-du-Pape except that the vineyards of Gigondas exist at higher elevation and its soils, comprised mainly of crumbled limestone from the Dentelles, often produce a more dense and robust Grenache-based red wine.
The region has a history of fine winemaking, extending back to Roman times. But by the 20th century, Gigondas was merely lumped into the less distinct zone of Côtes du Rhône Villages. However, it was first among these satellite villages to earn its own appellation, which occurred in 1971.
Gigondas reds must be between 50 to 100% Grenache with Syrah and Mourvèdre comprising the bulk of the remainder of the blend. They tend express rustic flavors and aromas of wild blackberry, raspberry, fig, plum, as well as juniper, dried herbs, anise, smoke and river rock. The best are bold but balanced, and finish with impressively sexy and velvety tannins.
The Gigondas appellation also produces rosé but no white wines.