Winemaker Notes
Blend: 80% Clairette, 20% Roussanne
Professional Ratings
-
Jeb Dunnuck
One of the whites of the vintage is the 2018 Châteauneuf Du Pape Blanc, a gorgeous, rich, layered effort that stays perfectly balanced and pure. Classic notes of white flowers, honeysuckle, white peach, and ample minerality all give way to a medium to full-bodied white that has loads of texture, good freshness, and a great finish. This is a brilliant Châteauneuf Du Pape Blanc that makes a mockery of so many of the overly lean, fresh, so called elegant whites being produced today.
-
Wine Spectator
Bright, with white peach and white nectarine flavors bursting through, laced with verbena and honeysuckle notes and ending with a fresh finish. Clairette and Roussanne. Drink now through 2025.
-
Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
The 2018 Chateauneuf du Pape Blanc is a blend of 80% Clairette and 20% Roussanne, all barrel-fermented and aged in 30% new oak (briefly, as the wine was bottled in January). It features scents of honey, marmalade and delicate hints of peach and pineapple. Medium-bodied, it's silky in texture, with brine and citrus zest on the finish.
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.