Winemaker Notes
Domaine Chante Cigale Chateauneuf-du-Pape exudes aromas full of fruit and spices. The mouth is fleshy with notes of red and black fruits enhanced with very fine tannins.
Perfect with flavorful red meats, rich sauces and ripe cheese.
Professional Ratings
-
Decanter
An intense, concentrated and dynamic style. Very well balanced, with a great sense of freshness and energy. Lovely firm acid line running through it, and a long finish. One of the best Tradition cuvées this year, and certainly the best Chante Cigale Tradition rouge I've tasted from tank.
-
Wine Enthusiast
Taut, bristling tannins and a rim of tobacco lend an upright feel to rich blackberry and black-fig flavors in this wine. A Grenache-dominant red blended with Syrah, Mourvèdre and Cinsault sourced from a diversity of soils, it's a smartly balanced wine calibrating power and ripeness against bright acidity and twists of savory resin, tar and coffee grinds. While tightly wound in youth it should open from 2025 and improve well through 2030.
-
Jeb Dunnuck
The 2019 Châteauneuf Du Pape (65% Grenache, 20% Syrah, 10% Mourvèdre, and 5% Cinsault) offers a wonderfully pure, seamless style that carries lots of black cherry and blackberry fruits as well as Provençal garrigue, saddle leather, and peppery spice. Rounded, seamless, and beautifully done, it's a smoking classic Châteauneuf du Pape to enjoy over the coming 10-12 years.
-
Wine Spectator
Bright and fresh, with a burst of red and black cherry and licorice notes leading the way. Backed by juicy texture and flashes of light spice and toast on the finish. Grenache, Syrah, Mourvèdre and Cinsault.
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.