Winemaker Notes
This wine shows a bright acacia honey color with bright reflections. On the nose, you'll find white flowers aromas, associated with tropical fruits, roasted pear and fresh vanilla hints. It is a structured white wine, showing superb balance and vibrant freshness! You can drink it on the youth to enjoy of its freshness and minerality, or age it for a while to obtain evolving aromas, volume and a full-bodied wine.
Pair with Bresse poultry with truffles, turbot with spiced mussel and clam broth, goat cheeses, and olive oil.
Blend: 40% White Grenache, 30% Roussanne, 30% Clairette
Professional Ratings
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Jeb Dunnuck
Checking as a blend of 40% Grenache Blanc, 30% Roussanne, and 30% Clairette that’s all from the Les Bédines lieu-dit, the 2023 Châteauneuf Du Pape Les Safres Blanc is brilliant, with a ripe melon, honeyed flower, and mint-driven perfume as well as medium-bodied richness and depth on the palate. It has a kiss of background toast and oak, flawless balance, and a great finish. I love it today, yet it should keep for a decade.
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Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
With notes of white peach, verbena, spices, lemon oil and honeysuckle, the 2023 Chateauneuf du Pape Blanc Les Safres possesses a medium-bodied, round and enveloping structure built around a sappy texture and bright acids that segue into a long, mineral and saline finish. This blend of 40% Grenache Blanc, 30% Roussanne and 30% Clairette, matured for four months in stainless steel, is produced at only 2,500 bottles and could age gracefully over the next 20 years (if you have the patience!).
Rating: 94+ -
Vinous
The 2023 Châteauneuf-du-Pape Blanc Les Safres checks in at 14.98% alcohol. A short élevage of four months in stainless steel neatly preserved the vivid freshness. Combining fragrant honeysuckle, yellow apple, lime flesh and white peach aromas, the medium- to full-bodied 2023 closes with persistence on the sapid finale. Production totaled only 2,593 bottles.
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.