Winemaker Notes
Powerful, elegant and refined wine built for the long guard. Intense nose of blackberry, blackcurrant, worn by empyreumatic notes. The dense mouth of this wine blends beautifully notes of tan, cherry cherry cedar and continues with an intense and persistent finish.
Blend: 70% Grenache, 30% Syrah
Professional Ratings
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Jeb Dunnuck
Partially destemmed and based on 65% Grenache and 35% Syrah, aged all in foudre, the 2020 Châteauneuf Du Pape Réserve Secrète offers an absolutely heavenly bouquet of pure red and black fruits, smoky garrigue, savory flowers, and ground pepper. This carries to a full-bodied 2020 with a pure, layered mouthfeel that carries polished, fine tannins, no hard edges, and a gorgeous finish. It shows the softer, more accessible style of the 2020 vintage and is a dream of a wine to enjoy over the coming 10-15 years.
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James Suckling
Lots of smoke and tar, but also forest berry fruit and floral nuances wrapped around an incredibly powerful structure, and all the concentration to go with that. And then comes the dense and balanced finish that is not a jot domineering. A cuvee of wine from century-old vines of grenache (60%) and syrah (40%) from vineyards on sandy soil. Aged for 15 months in barrel, then aged for another year in foudre. From organically grown grapes.
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Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
Bottled at the same time as the 2021s, the 2020 Chateauneuf du Pape La Reserve Secrete is a 60-40 blend of Grenache and Syrah that spent 18 months in barrel, then was blended and put into foudre for another 12 months. It does show considerable vanilla and cigar box cedar, then outbalances those beautifully with bold cherries, blackberries and graceful top notes of garrigue. Full-bodied, rich, creamy and lush, it shows stunning texture and length and traces of warmth and dark chocolate but also a surprising amount of elegance.
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.