Kunin Pape Star Rouge 2016
-
Robert
Parker
Product Details
Your Rating
Somm Note
Winemaker Notes
A versatile take on France’s Chateauneuf-du-Pape is made with Grenache, Mourvèdre, Syrah and Cinsualt. Custom blended each vintage and aged in neutral oak, this crowd-pleasing wine strikes a perfect balance between bright red fruit, spice and earth. Year after year, our Pape Star remains a fan favorite for its medium-bodied weight, elegant texture and versatility when it comes to pairing wine and food.
Professional Ratings
-
Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
A blend of 45% Grenache, 30% Mourvèdre and 25% Syrah made without new oak, the 2016 Pape Star is pale to medium ruby-purple with bright scents of cranberry sauce, crushed blueberries, warm red cherries and blackberry candy with notions of crushed rock, garrigue, dried flowers, charcuterie and woodsmoke. Medium-bodied with tricolored fruit in the mouth plus herbal and meaty touches, it has soft, grainy tannins and seamless freshness, finishing long. 1,500 cases produced.
Other Vintages
2018-
Robert
Parker
Kunin Wines will never make 5,000 or even 10,000 cases of wine for just this reason. I want to make the best wine possible from the best vineyards possible year after year. Unfortunately, the best vineyards don’t always have that many grapes, so it is a fact of life for me that Kunin Wines will always be small, and that our production of various wines from different vineyards may fluctuate from vintage to vintage. By staying small and letting vineyard and vintage quality dictate production levels, however, we will always be able to make the best wines possible from the best grapes available. When you open a bottle of wine with a Kunin label, you can be assured that, from the vineyard to the glass, as little as possible was done to obscure the purity of fruit and terroir that Mother Nature created.
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.
The largest and perhaps most varied of California’s wine-growing regions, the Central Coast produces a good majority of the state's wine. This vast California wine district stretches from San Francisco all the way to Santa Barbara along the coast, and reaches inland nearly all the way to the Central Valley.
Encompassing an extremely diverse array of climates, soil types and wine styles, it contains many smaller sub-AVAs, including San Francisco Bay, Monterey, the Santa Cruz Mountains, Paso Robles, Edna Valley, Santa Ynez Valley and Santa Maria Valley.
While the Central Coast California wine region could probably support almost any major grape varietiy, it is famous for a few Central Coast reds and whites. Pinot Noir, Chardonnay, Cabernet Sauvignon and Zinfandel are among the major ones. The Central Coast is home to many of the state's small, artisanal wineries crafting unique, high-quality wines, as well as larger producers also making exceptional wines.