Winemaker Notes
Blend: 80% Grenache, 20% Mourvedre
Professional Ratings
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Jeb Dunnuck
Similarly colored to the classic cuvée, the 2016 Châteauneuf-du-Pape Quet is 80% Grenache and 20% Mourvèdre. It offers a huge, rich, powerful style that never goes over the top and stays balanced and graceful. Currants, toasted spices, caramelized beef, and exotic notes all flow to a massively textured, powerhouse of a wine that has a stacked mid-palate, a bombastic personality, and a great finish. It needs two to three years of bottle age but is an incredible, heady, powerful wine.
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Wine Enthusiast
Cassis and blueberry flavors are juicy and mouthfilling in this buoyant, fruity wine. It’s a glossy, silken sip, but anchored by a stalwart grip of tannins. Enjoyable in youth for its lipsmacking fruit it should gain finesse and savoriness through 2030. Wines of France Inc.
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.