Exploring the BOLD Red Wines of Châteauneuf-du-Pape

Chateauneuf-du-Pape was one of the first fine wines I fell in love with. This region in the Southern Rhone is known for rich reds and surprisingly good whites. Join creative Fabien and I on a whirlwind tour of the region. You'll meet some iconic producers as well as lesser known gems. That all starts right now. The Mistral is a northerly wind that rips through the Rhone Valley and it's howling when we arrive. Our first stop is Domaine André Brunel aka Domaine Les Cailloux. What are you doing Matthew? Trying to get in. This is one of my favorite producers in the region. It's the first time I've been to their winemaking facility. We only use concrete, no stainless, no oak. I think it's also a definition of the style of the estate. It's beautiful. Concrete everywhere. We don't irrigate to increase the volume, we irrigate to keep some balance, to keep some juice, so we keep some freshness and some acidity. Sometimes when the plant doesn't have any more water, she stops the maturation process. We always harvest Syrah first and then we start harvesting Grenache and then Mouvadre. Sometimes we co-ferment Grenache and Mouvadre to be sure that we have a complete plant. Let's start with our Cote d'Oron. I think the last one I had was 18 of this. I love it. Perfect balance. Mature fruits, not overripe, mature, good acidity. We try to keep a very fresh fruit. We want people to finish the entire bottle quite easily. Next, we taste some components of their flagship Chateauneuf-du-Pape. What do you think about the Grenache? I love it. L'Ecaillou final blend. 2019. It was 6 years ago now. So we want the Chateauneuf-du-Pape L'Ecaillou to be the best wine that we can do. Fabien seems impressed. If I'm looking for good wine, I'm looking for freshness and acidity. If it's over-oaked, if it's over-concentrated, over-mature, or over the top of the oak, like we say in French, doing a blowjob to Pinocchio, it doesn't work with me. How many grapes end up in your Cahiers? The main grapes are Grenache, Syrah, and Mouvadre. And we have a full percent of Cinq-Saut. So if you want to drink something nice with a nice fruit and easy to understand, you use Grenache. Syrah brings more color, and Mouvadre brings sometimes more tannins and more spice. Next is their top wine. The Last Vintage got a perfect 100 points from Robert Parker's The Wine Advocate. It comes from a vine which is 135 years old. It was planted by my great-granddad in 1889. C'est bon, c'est bon! I would buy this bottle on its own! This is why I love Grenache. I'm amazed by the freshness in the wine. The dried strawberry, strawberry pepper, kind of beef jerky type flavor, and the length. How do you see the future of Chateauneuf? Bright, bright future. Do you see a change in the grapes load or the blend? Mouvadre and Grenache are already Spanish grapes, so they are used to have low water and high temperatures. But I think we are going to use less oak. Maybe we are going to use more irrigation. And we are also going maybe to use more tannins. Maybe we are going to leave the leaves on the vines also. We are going to keep the leaves to protect the grapes from the sun. In the center of the village we reach our accommodation, which is run by a lovely sommelier named Daniela. I was the first lady awarded sommelier in the contest of sommelier competition. Only men were there. I opened doors for females. What year? Oh, you were not born. You were not born. In 78. Super nice and enthusiastic bed and breakfast owner. Full of energy here. And we are in the center of Chateauneuf. It's perfect. Just outside the village is a real gem, Domaine Bordeaux. This is a tiny cellar run by Jean Paul and his wife Sean. Your father started, right? Or was your grandfather? No, my father was first. My grandfather came from Piedmont, north of Italy, but he was a woodcutter. And after he died, my father worked in different wineries, learning to make the wine and learning to work in the vines. How come the Guignol plot? Rewind? Yes, go ahead. He's basically saying that there are some Cote d'Orone plots, but they just sell it to the Négociants because people come to Chateauneuf for Chateauneuf wines. 16 hectares, 11 hectares is from family. My parents, our vines. So which one are you working with? The majority of Grenache, but we grow also Syrah, Mourvèdre. We have a little parcel of Coudrois, a little parcel of Senso, a parcel of white grapes, and we have also all the other grapes, but it's coplantine. I've always had a special connection with the cellar, probably because the wines are great and Sean is also from Michigan. How did you end up in France, from Michigan? I was a sommelier at a restaurant in Michigan, and Jean-Paul came for a wine tasting there, and then I had planned to come to France to study in Sault Ste. Rousse, and he said, well, come stay with me, and I did, and never went back home. Let the tasting begin. What is the blend exactly again? 35% Merène, 35% Grenache Blanc, 15% Roussane, and 15% Bourboulègue. Damn, it's good. I'm not driving, so... I look for a traditional white, nothing stripped away, it's just, there's a lot of texture, that's why I like this one. It's just a wine you want to drink the whole bottle of. Again, I'm glad I can show Fabien a few wines. The Bois de Boursane Chateauneuf-du-Pape is truly a special and unique wine. It's the type of Chateauneuf that is so fresh, so elegant, that even without food, you will enjoy it. It's not the type of Chateauneuf where you need to put some meat or barbecue or something, it's just like, perfect. They're not dried or jammy, it's fresh red fruit flavors. That's what I like a lot about them. It's like the tannins are really from the grape themselves. They're round and they cover the palate, not just the gums. Jean-Paul talks about using stems during fermentation. When you make the selection of grapes in the beginning, you can easily have a good stem. And if you're a person with bad stem, I love wine with full body, strong and like this, but I think it's easier to drink with the stem. And also for the potential, aging potential is so interesting, with a little more, maybe a little more complexity. Next is the top wine, the Cuvée de Félix. Really traditional flavors, but really, really well made. Your wines, I always just like to smell. I like them to sit in a glass and just smell them. So you're going to start maybe holding some vintages back and then selling like herbs. Yes, I was talking with a friend yesterday, he said, wow, I tasted Félix 2015. And two years ago, the wine wasn't for me the best in Chateauneuf, but now it started to be very, very, very, very good. You presented your wine to some buyers and all the people said, I want to buy, I want to buy, I want to buy. I feel like we're in an episode of Yes Theory, trying to sneak in somewhere. So there's filming going on. We have no idea where we're going. So it's chaotic today. Oh, it's been chaotic. It's going to be chaotic. There's about 80 people here. And among all that will be coming in. Owned by the Perrin family, Château de Beaucastel is one of the icons of the Appalachian. It dates back from 1687, because in the wall there is engraved the coat of arms of the Beaucastel family, who lived back in those days. But then obviously bits have been added on over the years. None of the negotiating wines are made here. It's only the Châteauneuf du Pape, the Château de Beaucastel, and Coudelé de Beaucastel, the Côte d'Yvonne. Beaucastel is not open for casual visitors. Well, if we can, we've got the time. We do, of course, accept visitors. But we also have a wine shop, a tasting room, in the village of Châteauneuf du Pape, where people can taste the whole range. This is where I tasted last time, yeah. We used to have just a big table here and chairs around the table. So I've got the red and the roussin, the white. I was helping her with the light, because they even cut the light in the storage room. The reds from Château de Beaucastel are of course brilliant, but I've always been impressed with their two white Châtelers. This is the Blanc Beaucastel Châteauneuf du Pape 2020? Yep, that's correct. I still love the standard Beaucastel Blanc a lot. I do like oak and whites, and I think this has enough concentration. Right now, as you know my taste, it's maybe a bit over the top for me, but I think with the right dish, it would be perfect. Robert Parker himself once called this wine the Poulet de Montrachet of the Rhône. This is, it's one of my favorites. It's one of my favorite whites. The roussin, you either have to drink young or old. Before five, six years old, or after 15 years old. Roussin comes from rous, which means ginger, as in the color, and the wine turns a little bit orangey. It's as if it's oxidized, but actually it isn't, because it comes back. And then it is like an old Burgundy. This is oaky too, though. Yeah, but it's more my style. But it's oaky too. It has more finesse. Even if it's roussin, it has more finesse to me. I really love the first one. The first one, to me, resembles more to a more traditional style of what people know of Châteauneuf. But this one, to me, is Burgundian style. It's more elegant, more finesse. Sometimes roussin are made like Chardonnay, but for me, you can still say it's roussin, because it has a little bit of that liminess, some of the slaty-type flavors. It's expensive, but it's a wine that you've got to try. Don't you agree? Yeah. Oh, yeah. I love the French way of probably saying roussin. Roussin. Rous, rous, rous. I can't do it without the tongue. Roussin. Rous. Almost. Then you need to blend the two, the r and the ou. Roussin. Back in town, the Mistral is still going full force. It's called terroir. We stop at Venadia in the center. What is Venadia for people visiting? It's a shop that was created 20 years ago by the syndicate, the union of the winemakers of Châteauneuf-du-Pape. The idea was to propose the wines to the public with a decent price. We have around 150 different domains. Around 250 maybe references. Châteauneuf red, Châteauneuf white. And can people actually taste here? Absolutely. After a quick tasting, we pick up our samples and head back to the B&B. It's almost like aperitif time. I actually think this is pretty damn good. Yeah? What do you think? I love it. It's not on the oak. It's really the fruit showing. Very good acidity. Pretty interesting. When white Châteauneuf-du-Pape is good, I think it's really, really good, honestly. You know what I want to have right now? What? A grilled sea bass with this. 23 euros. Very good value for money. White Châteauneuf. I think this is good. Can you check if this is made of concrete? 30% in demi-nuit, big oak barrels. And then 70% in concrete tanks. That means that I win because I said it was in concrete. 70% in concrete. That's quite a bit. I win, right? In the evening, our friend Michel Blanc comes over. He's the president of the Federation of Winemakers of Châteauneuf-du-Pape. And tonight, he's prepared a picnic for us. Including plenty of old wines. 20? 18. And this is a new label of Château Frontière. A new one. I remember the old one. It has more balance, more acidity. And you feel less the alcohol on the hand of the mouthpiece. It's got bottle age, too. Yeah, but... It's still good. Yeah, it's still good. Châteauneuf-du-Pape is going to have more white. More organic wine, too. And maybe using more different grape varieties. We are planting Cunoise, Saint-Saëns, Baccharaise, Muscadet. So Châteauneuf is going to move towards more medium-bodied, more elegant. I think so, yeah. But Châteauneuf-du-Pape, in the last decades, was like that. But it changed in the beginning of the 80s, 90s. And now we are going to the source. Because Bonnarche is a grape for making fine wines. Like? Love it! And that's all we remember from the rest of the evening. Domaine La Baroche makes stylish wines that I love. But this is my first time in the cellar. Yes, Châteauneuf-du-Pape had frost. And one third of the appellation had suffered. We were quite ok. We were lucky. Welcome! We are lucky because we have very old vines. The average age of the vine is 65 years old. And nearly half is a 100-year-old Grenache. Not for sale. Thank you. You see that? I'm going to cry. It's been two years since I had this, I think. Yeah, two years. That was the last Printemps, right? So I'm just wondering what kind of style that you're trying to make in terms of Châteauneuf-du-Pape. We really want to have wines with a lot of elegance and freshness. I remember your Pure so much that I don't remember the base cuvées. And this is really good. There's still concentration. But my mouth is still watering. You still have acidity, but you've got tannin. Is the wine mysterious as your face looks right now? Yeah. And then on the mouth, it's a lot of red fruit. Tiny bit peppery. And the tannins are very long, very velvety at the end. And I feel like I'm eating, I don't know, like green nuts or green walnuts. How much stem are you using? We keep 100% of the ripe stem. That's good. They're not ripe. It's disgusting. It's green. It helps to add freshness because it lowers a little bit the alcohol level. For stems, they're different in different varieties. But in Rhone grapes, I always feel like the tannins are really chewy. There's something different about the tannins in wine. Laetitia opens an older vintage of their Châteauneuf-du-Pape. The young one smells like one that can age, you know, not all Châteauneuf-du-Pape. To me, I'd like to drink more Châteauneuf-du-Pape younger. To me, not all of them age super well. After five, six years, you see, into 2015, it starts to show the further romance. It's worth to wait a little bit. The younger vintage that we had was like a tiny baby, very shy, a lot of dark fruits. And now it starts to turn to more like a teenager, not in full strength, but very elegant. The fiancé. It's the love story between a hundred-year-old vine of Grenache and the young vines of Syrah. The Grenache really comes out to me. I don't know about you, Fabien? I love it. It's a bit richer because it has more Syrah, so it gets more character in a way. Baroche's top wine, known as Pure, just received a perfect 100-point score from the critic Jeb Dulic. I love the nose. So, 2019. Personality, structure, character, and simplicity of a very old man. This is powerful Grenache, but it's powerful Grenache d'Anval. A lot of intensity. Tannins are really fine-grained, but it's not jammy, it's not alcoholic, but it's big. I mean, it's a nice wine. It's big on the nose, but when you have it on the mouth, you really go straight into the complexity. It's like so many layers, I'm sure. I remember now why I was so impressed with it three years ago. Do you want some more? Yeah, I will have some more. For you, it's 95 euros, Mathieu. You need to pay. I'm driving you everywhere, but when I come here, I'm never disappointed. Thank you. Thank you for coming. Our last stop is the legendary estate Domaine du Pigon. How are you? Nice to see you again. Laurence Faro greets us and takes us through her cellar. I've been drinking your wine for a long time, but I only recently learned how to pronounce it right. I was saying Pagou, not Pago. It depends on the language you want to speak. If you want to speak the dialect from Provence, then you will say Pagou. So it actually can be Pagou and Pago at the same time. I wasn't 100% wrong. During the pop period in Chateauneuf-du-Pape, wine that was made in clay, and the clay is very sticky. It's why the pot took the name of the material. So it's why Pag, Pagou, in Provençal means sticky. For our top white wine, called Aqenpou, I wanted to make an experiment with Grenache and Saint-Saëns. And what will we see in the bottle? It depends. I never know exactly when I will bottle the wine. I taste and I decide when is the perfect time, when the wine is mature enough to be bottled and released. Pagou style wine, the Chateauneuf-du-Pape is very traditional. I never wanted to change my grandmother's winemaking process. And because it works, it is what I liked. Because even when I was very young, I loved to taste the Chateauneuf-du-Pape, but I was absolutely not allowed. Then I climbed on top of the barrels and I always put my finger to know if the wine level was right. And I always set my finger. I've been drinking these wines, tasting these wines for a long time, but it's so different when you actually come to the cellar, meet producers or meet the people that really have the hands in the wine. It always gives you an extra special connection. I think that's why us wine nerds like visiting so many cellars. I know, we're a little bit crazy. After a quick tractor check-up, Laurence, Fabien and I sit down to taste some wine, starting with a beautiful Cote d'Or Blanc. It's beautiful. It's perfect to wake up the palate in the morning. The red Cote d'Or from Pagot are also beautiful and budget-friendly alternatives. But the wine was produced here at my grandparents' time. Most of the wine was sold in Bocques to the negotiants in Burgundy or Bordeaux. And in Bordeaux, they in fact trade the Chateauneuf-du-Pape wine under their brand. It's why this area was not very famous. Next is the wine that's made Pagot famous. It's structured, that's the thing. Quite divisive, the wines of Pagot, because some people either love them or some people don't like them, but I really like them. I like the signature. It's like very, it really gets to you. I taste my wine, I think it's good. I want, of course I like my wine, but I'm not tasting only my wine. I taste the wine from anywhere in the world because I'm a fan, a wine fan. I'm interested to always discover a new producer. So the Cuvée Laurence is an extra aging of the Cuvée Réservée. You like the Cuvée Laurence as opposed to the Réservée? I haven't tasted it yet, but on the nose, to me, it's really what Chateauneuf-du-Pape. I always liked the concept of that Cuvée Laurence. You can say sometimes you taste the Pinot, the Pinot Noir, and you say, wow, this is a very delicate type of grape. But the Pinot Noir has a natural acidity, but the Grenache has a spiciness and less, much less acidity. The Grenache, it has to be treated very delicate. And we finish with the amazing Cuvée Atempo. You might confuse this with white burgundy, right? On the nose, right? On the nose, you really get like this burgundy. If there is one white Chateauneuf you need to try, go for this. There are so many excellent producers in this appellation that we don't have time to cover them all. But that means you can buy Chateauneuf-du-Pape in confidence. This wasn't my first time in the region, and it definitely won't be the last. There's more to come on the road. Stay tuned to the channel for more.