Winemaker Notes
A Châteauneuf-duPape perfectly pitched between richness, freshness, robustness and femininity, velvet and minerality.
Professional Ratings
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James Suckling
The trademark, old-vine-grenache offering of earthy notes with wild berries, herbs, flowers and spices. Wild. Hints of blood oranges and pink-grapefruit peel. Superb, expansive palate shape, all finesse and length. Super-fine, focused and elegant. Refined, regal and majestic. Peppery, bright, wild, red fruit, blood oranges and orange bitters. Decades ahead of this.
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Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
Still yet to be bottled, the 2016 Chateauneuf du Pape Piedlong is 90% Grenache (from the Piedlong lieu-dit) and 10% Mourvèdre. It offers mouthwatering elements of cherries and raspberries, rose petals and black tea. Silky, lacy and delicate in texture for such a full-bodied wine, it's immediately charming and seductive.
Barrel Sample: 94-96
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Jeb Dunnuck
Always brought up in foudre, the 2016 Châteauneuf-du-Pape Piedlong comes from the pebbly soils of the Piélong lieu-dit located in the heart of the appellation. Incorporating 10% Mourvèdre, its medium ruby color is followed by a complex, layered, beautifully Grenache that has lots of savory red fruits, dried strawberries, dried earth, spice, and licorice aromas and flavors. It's medium to full-bodied, beautifully balanced, and long.
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Wine & Spirits
The Brunier brothers, who run Domaine du Vieux Télégraphe, also work with vineyards they acquired with the purchase of Domaine de la Roquète in 1986. This wine comes from two lieux-dit: a parcel of 70-year-old grenache growing in Piedlong, at the highest point in Châteauneuf-du-Pape, and a plot in Pignan, which provides a small amount of old-vine mourvèdre. It’s extraordinarily elegant for a Châteauneuf-du-Pape, with scents of laurel and rose lifting its red-cherry flavor. Fermented and aged for a year in cement tanks, then finished with a year in foudres, the wine has pure and precise flavors carried on silky-smooth tannins—inviting now, and well suited to aging.
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.