Winemaker Notes
Professional Ratings
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Jeb Dunnuck
The smaller production 2022 Châteauneuf Du Pape Boisrenard comes from a field blend of 80% Grenache and splashes of 17 other varieties. Brought up mostly in foudre, with a small amount in new oak, it's a gorgeous effort offering juicy black cherry and darker berry fruits, medium to full-bodied richness, a pure, seamless mouthfeel, plenty of tannins, and youthful yet pure aromatics of peppery garrigue, sappy flowers, graphite, and new leather. It needs 2-4 years, if not more, of bottle age and should see its 20th birthday in fine form. It's another absolutely brilliant wine from this estate.
Rating: 94+ -
Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
The 2022 Chateauneuf du Pape Boisrenard, a blend of 80% Grenache Noir with a mix of the 13 authorized varieties, possesses a complex, elegant and fresh bouquet of dark wild berries, garrigue, spices and fresh thyme mingled with dark cherries. Medium to full-bodied, enrobing and layered, textured and elegant, it has a multidimensional core of fruit, velvety tannins and a long, penetrating finish. Built to age gracefully over the next 20 years, this is a real success.
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James Suckling
A well-crafted, focused, textured and seductive Chateauneuf-du-Pape. The nose expresses notes of wild berries, raspberries, dried herbs, sand, bay leaves and stones. It’s full-bodied with fine tannins. Serious and layered with plenty of drive and precision. The subtle core of fruit combines perfectly with the herbs and spices, giving a long, flavorful and harmonious finish. From biodynamically grown grapes with Demeter certification. Drink or hold.
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Wine Enthusiast
The nose isfresh and refreshing, filled with white peach, Bosc pear,soft yellow flowers and wet river rock. Medium-bodiedwith a light silty texture, it opens with citrus oils, thenorange pith and bergamot, finishing on stone and gentlealmond. Perfect with garlic-grilled prawns.
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Wine Spectator
Round and generous yet firmly structured, this offers a deep well of black licorice, dark plum and sweet spices flanked by notes of sweet tobacco, salt and toasted anise. Concentrated and sultry on the long finish, held together with grippy tannins that are still tightly coiled, with underpinnings of warm iron and bitter cherry pit. Needs a bit of time to truly sing. Best from 2026 through 2040.
The Coulons have estate-bottled their wines since the early 1900’s. Paul Coulon's father and grandfather were instrumental in creating the regulations of the Appellation Contrôlée system (Chateauneuf du Pape was France's first appellation contrôlée, in 1929). Detail oriented, meticulous to the point of perfectionism, visitors can peruse not only the informative Musée du Vin below their Rasteau vineyard, but detailed volumes for each vintage with ground temperatures, rainfall, hours of sunlight, etc.
Domaine de Beaurenard portfolio includes: Cotes du Rhone Rouge & Rose, Cotes du Rhone Villages Rasteau, Chateauneuf du Pape Rouge & Blanc and Chateauneuf du Pape Cuvee Boisrenard which is consistently one of Robert Parker and Stephen Tanzer's most highly rated Rhone wines.
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.