Winemaker Notes
#47 Wine Spectator Top 100 of 2025
The wine shows intense blackberry and fig fruit with licorice, violets, and charcoal on the finish. It is remarkably fresh and finessed given the sun and warmth of the southern Rhône. The unique micro-climate combined with 60-year-old vines and traditional winemaking make
Château de Saint Cosme Gigondas the benchmark wine of the appellation.
Blend: 70% Grenache, 15% Mourvèdre, 14% Syrah, 1% Cinsaut
Professional Ratings
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Decanter
Menthol notes and complex herbal essences. Soft, easy-going, the oak helps to bring some welcome polish and sheen, with well-balanced acidity. This is a successfully constructed wine in a tricky vintage, showing good winemaking.
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Jeb Dunnuck
As to the 2022 Gigondas from barrel, these are all beautiful wines. The 2022 Gigondas has terrific ripeness as well as a sexy, velvety, medium to full-bodied style. Classic Gigondas spice, cedary herbs, pepper, and red and black fruit define the aromatics, and it's concentrated and balanced.
Barrel Sample: 92-94 -
James Suckling
Precise, textured and lively with aromas of wild berries, blackberries, dried thyme, bay leaves, baking spices and dried flowers on the nose. Full-bodied with fine tannins. Dense and chalky with a vivid core of sweet berries and spices mingling on the mid-palate and onto the peppery, powdery finish. From organically grown grapes with Ecocert certification.
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Wine Spectator
Expressive notes of pomegranate and raspberry show pretty lavender perfume alongside wafts of apple wood smoke and black pepper. Fine yet substantial tannins hold a firm grip, with graphite power building. Concentrated and firmly structured on a sleek, powerful frame.
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Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
The 2022 Gigondas from Château de Saint Cosme is showing particularly well today, evoking a fresh, complex and fruity bouquet of pepper, violet, crushed strawberries and menthol mingled with delicate notes of garrigue. Medium to full-bodied, delicate and textured, it's perfectly balanced with good depth at the core and a long, mineral and ethereal finish. It's a blend of 70% Grenache Noir, 15% Mourvèdre, 14% Syrah and 1% Cinsault that matured 20% in new barrels, 50% in used barrels and the rest in concrete tanks.
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.