Winemaker Notes
Serve with rabbit cooked with prunes or duck stew with truffles.
Blend: 60% Grenache,, 40 % Mourvedre
Professional Ratings
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Wine Spectator
This has a lot going on, with dark ganache and espresso followed by roasted alder and juniper notes, before the core of plum, blackberry and steeped black currant fruit finally starts to assert itself. The long finish lets bay and tobacco leaf notes stride through, with a tarry edge as well. Shows great character. Best from 2015 through 2030.
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Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
Checking in as a blend of 60% Grenache, 30% Mourvedre and 10% Syrah, the 2010 Chateauneuf du Pape Cuvee Renaissance is another super-sized, full-bodied, concentrated, and yet pure and polished example of this cuvee. Offering up notions of sweet cassis, blackberries, salt block, violets and vanilla bean, it's enjoyable now in an exuberant, flashy sort of way, yet needs cellaring to show its full potential. Give bottles another 3-4 years and enjoy through 2030.
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Wilfred Wong of Wine.com
The 2010 Domaine de Cristia Renaissance Châteauneuf-du-Pape exhibits incredible depth and power. Fortunately, this full-throttled wine stays well-behaved and refined. The wine's combined flavors of black fruit, charred barrel, and rich earth make it an unrivalled match with an extra-sharp, aged cheddar. Drinks quite well now. (Tasted: May 23, 2016, San Francisco, CA)
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.