Winemaker Notes
Pale gold with green tints. This elegant, balanced wine offers notes of pear, peach, mango, vanilla, and pastry. The oak is well integrated, and the finish is long with pineapple and citrus notes. A great white wine made for cellaring.
Blend: 56% Roussanne, 44% Grenache Blanc
Professional Ratings
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Jeb Dunnuck
The smaller production 2022 Châteauneuf Du Pape Clos De Beauvenir Blanc comes from a vineyard just beside the domaine and is based on 56% Roussanne and 44% Grenache Blanc. Its medium gold hue is followed by a brilliant perfume of orange blossoms, honeyed white flowers, orchard fruits, and spicy wood that gains depth as well as freshness with time in the glass. Beautifully concentrated, medium to full-bodied, and broad and expansive on the palate, it's another riveting wine from this team that's geared for the dinner table. While I would drink bottles over the coming 4-5 years, it will have an interesting evolution past that as well.
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James Suckling
A refined nose of fresh citron, bay leaves, yellow plums, quince zest, white pepper and hints of mild spices. Full-bodied with impressive volume. It's vibrant and ample with so many dimensions. It's extensive and so refined with complexity, tension and great harmony all along towards the very long, focused finish. Drink or hold.
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Vinous
Blending 56% Roussanne with 44% Grenache Blanc from certified organic grapes, the 2022 Châteauneuf-du-Pape Blanc Clos de Beauvenir delivers. Swirling the glass unlocks fragrant pineapple, spring blossom, white peach and lemon flesh notes. Concentrated and round, this is a serious Blanc Clos de Beauvenir with the potential to gain more nuance after a few years in bottle. That said, it’s already drinking splendidly.
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Wine Spectator
A rich, flattering style nicely offset by generous salty, savory energy. Offers a toast and shortbread robe that overlays green plum and juicy nectarine flavors. Remains restrained through the long, opulent, smoke-kissed finish, thanks to a beam of finely crushed mineral accents. Roussanne and Grenache Blanc.
Full-bodied and flavorful, white Rhône blends originate from France’s Rhône Valley. Today these blends are also becoming popular in other regions. Typically some combination of Grenache Blanc, Marsanne, Roussanne and Viognier form the basis of a white Rhône blend with varying degrees of flexibility depending on the exact appellation. Somm Secret—In the Northern Rhône, blends of Marsanne and Roussanne are common but the south retains more variety. Marsanne, Roussanne as well as Bourboulenc, Clairette, Picpoul and Ugni Blanc are typical.
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.