This Saturday, January 18, from 1pm to 3pm, we are excited to welcome Guillemette Ferrando, daughter of iconic, iconoclastic winemaker Isabel Ferrando for an in-house tasting of the wines of Famille Isabel Ferrando. Guillemette will walk us through technique and philosophy, illustrating the evolution of Châteauneuf-du-Pape and her mother’s journey from a high-powered banker to a dynamic vigneron in beautiful Southern Rhône. Isabel’s expressions of Châteauneuf-du-Pape are as unique as they are profound, and Guillemette has inherited a pioneering spirit and adaptability in and out of the vineyard.
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Isabel Ferrando and daughter Guillemette
Isabel Ferrando comes from a small town about a half an hour south of Châteauneuf-du-Pape. To the hidebound traditionalists in Southern Rhône’s most heralded appellation, that means she is an outsider. Perhaps if you want to bring something new to the party, it helps if you weren’t invited to the party in the first place.
In any case, since launching Domaine Saint-Préfert in the early years of this century, drawing from a 33 acre parcel she purchased from the Serre family, her wines have earned some of the highest praise in France. Critics have trumpeted her wines as being not only among the most profound in Châteauneuf-du-Pape, but in the world.
And to her everlasting credit, Ferrando has managed to wrest many of these gems from a parcel that is considered among the most heat-prone in the region.
Her reputation has grown in each year of the two decades since her first release in 2003, but this has not stopped her from constant innovation, introspection and improvement. She was certified biodynamic in 2022, the same year she opened a new winery (built from local Luberon stones) with an assortment of cement vats for primary fermentations and blending. In the cellar, Ferrando works primarily with neutral demi-muids, but she has also introduced glass demi-johns, Stockinger foudres, and amphora. Aging in the correct vessel for the style and variety has become a cornerstone of her technique.
She says, “Under the benevolent and demanding eye of Henri Bonneau, the maestro, I learned that work in a vineyard must be progressive, from the slow taming of the vines to the translation of the grapes into wine. Inspired by the tradition of Burgundy’s climats, I first produced three cuvées from the Saint Préfert terroirs from 2003 to 2019: Classique, Réserve Auguste Favier and Collection Charles Giraud. Then, the Grand vin du terroir de Saint Préfert was created in 2020, the ultimate result of 20 years of work.”
Châteauneuf-du-Pape in France’s Rhône valley has traditionally been viewed as a rustic cousin to the elegant and long-lived persistence of great wines from Bordeaux and Burgundy. Châteauneuf is age-worthy, certainly, but there is exuberance in the fresh fruit flavors that dominate the style that makes it decadently drinkable virtually from the day it is released. It was said to make up for in pleasure what it lacked in sophistication.
With more than 8,000 acres under vine, Châteauneuf-du-Pape is the largest appellation in the Rhône, producing only two wines, red Châteauneuf-du-Pape, representing 94% of the appellation’s output, and white Châteauneuf-du-Pape. Of the eight red varietals planted, Grenache is the most dominant variety by far, taking up 80% of vineyard space, followed by Syrah, Mourvèdre and tiny quantities of Cinsault, Muscardin, Counoise, Vaccarèse and Terret Noir.
Terroir varies and can only be viewed as a generalization; limestone soil predominates in the western part of Châteauneuf-du-Pape; sand and clay soil covered with large stones on the plateaus. Mixed sand, red and grey clay, and limestone can be found in the northern part of the appellation, less stony soil alternating with marl in the east and shallow sand and clay soil on a well-drained layer of gravel in the south. The large pebbles contribute to the quality of the vines and grapes by storing heat during the day and holding water.
Like the soils, there is an enormous diversity of winemaking styles among CdP producers, creating both appealing, easy-to-understand fruit-filled wines as well as wines of greater intensity and sophistication.
Untrained Old Vines Grenache Bush in Galets Roulés
Grès Rouge, Sand and Safre
Throughout much of its history, CdP provided a leathery foil to the potent and somewhat austere elegance of Bordeaux and the heady sensuousness of Burgundy. CdP is ‘southern wine’, filled with rustic complexity—brawny, earthy and beautiful. But as a business, all wine finds itself beholden to trends, since moving product is necessary to remain afloat. During the Dark Ages (roughly1990 through 2010—in part influenced by the preferences of powerful critic Robert Parker Jr.) much of Châteauneuf-du-Pape’s output became bandwagon wines, jammy and alcoholic, lacking structure and tannin, in the process becoming more polished than rustic and more lush than nuanced. For some, this was delightful; for others, it was a betrayal of heritage and terroir.
These days, a new generation of winemakers seem to have identified the problem and corrected it. Recent vintages have seen the re-emergence of the classic, balanced style Châteauneuf-du-Pape, albeit at slightly higher prices. A changing climate has also altered traditional blends, so that more Mourvèdre may be found in cuvées that were once nearly all Grenache. Mourvèdre tends to have less sugar and so, produces wine that is less alcoholic and jammy, adding back some of the herbal qualities once so highly prized in the appellation. But a return to old school technique has also helped; however, many of the wines in this offer were destemmed prior to crushing and were fermented on native yeast rather than cultured yeast.
Terroir has always been lauded as a reflection of place while blending is a means for a winemaker to reflect an interpretation of places. When a wine is released as a monovarietal from a labeled lieu-dit, the expectation is that its character will express primacy—all the specific complexities of a specific soil structure and exposure-driven weather conditions over a single season.
When a wine is released as a blend, both of grape varieties and vineyards, the paradigm shifts and the goal—born of practicality, tradition or artistic license—is to showcase a final product built from various ingredients, as a chef might conceive a course. Likewise, a choral group does not seek to drown out potential soloists, but to use each voice to its strength. An ensemble of terroirs is a search for harmony. It does not try to overpower individual terroirs, but the opposite: It attempts weave them together to create a tapestry that illustrates the totality of a concept.
Rare is the winemaker who not only appreciates, but excels under both philosophies. So it is fitting that Isabel Ferrando has situated herself in Châteauneuf-du-Pape, where blending wines is the foundation of tradition. In 2020, Ferrando—having studied her parcels for many years—decided to explore the idea of blends. She says, “18 years of experience and knowledge of the terroirs and grape varieties now allow me to return to the great tradition of Châteauneuf-du-Pape, so I have released single blended wine in Châteauneuf-du-Pape red and white. …because the history of this appellation is written in this great art.”
If a ‘Grenachiste’ is a loyalist who fights for Grenache, it would be hard to find a High Priestess more qualified than Isabel Ferrando. A former banker who learned winemaking at Domaine Raspail-Ay in Gigondas, she purchased the seventy-year old Domaine Saint-Préfert from the Serre family (one of the region’s first domains to estate bottle) in 2002. That year, the property stood at a little over thirty acres, all in the Les Serres lieu-dit south of the village of Châteauneuf.
Les Serres has a much longer history: In the 1920’s, a pharmacist from Avignon named Fernand Serre purchased a vineyard parcel south of Chateauneuf du Pape, drawn to the spot by coincidence of the name: Les Serres. When Ferrando purchased the lieu-dit, she found vines more than a hundred years old. Alas, many were unsalvageable, and some places needed to be replanted entirely.
Isabel Ferrando
Once a successful first vintage was in the cellar, Ferrando began to purchase more land in the appellation, expanding her holdings to its current 55 acres. Among her acquisitions was a small parcel of old-vine Grenache vines that became Domaine Ferrando ‘Colombis’. Meanwhile, in 2013, Domaine Saint Préfert earned its certification for using 100% biodynamic farming, an agricultural technique that is somewhat easier pull off in Châteauneuf thanks to the sporadic but predictable Mistral winds that naturally protect vines from pests and mildew.
Still, it is Ferrando’s ever-growing expertise and hands-on winemaking that produces her outstanding portfolio. Says ‘The Grenachiste’: “There is no secret formula to making great wines in Châteauneuf. I work with a young team who is always open to new ideas. We rely on tradition without being trapped by it, working with whole-cluster fermentations without added yeasts because we discovered that it increased freshness in the wines and lowered alcohol, giving the wines vibrancy. Aging occurs in a mix of concrete and used foudres for up to 18 months.”
Isabel maintains that her responsibility is to strive for constant innovation to propel the estate forward. She believes that ‘innovation today is the innovation of yesterday.’ It is what led her to embrace biodynamic farming and it is what led her to build her new winery with only materials from within or surrounding her vineyards: It is what led Isabel to re-embrace the DNA of Chateauneuf-du-Pape and focus on the singular blended wine to showcase the best of the vintage.
* It is noted that with the arrival of Isabel Ferrando’s daughter Guillemette to the winemaking team in 2020, Isabel Ferrando has bottled her wines under the name ‘Famille Isabel Ferrando’ and totally changed the range previously labelled as Domaine Saint-Préfert.
Instead of an extensive portfolio of single-vineyard bottlings, she has combined most of her fruit (formerly bottled as ‘Classique,’ ‘Reserve Auguste Favier’ and ‘Collection Charles Giraud’) into a new flagship cuvée.
We are proud to offer our family of customers a specially priced Famille Isabel Ferrando pre-arrival pack that includes one bottle each of Ferrando’s Châteauneuf-du-Pape (red) 2022 and white (2023) with one bottle of the special ‘Colombis’ cuvée in addition to three bottles of Famille Isabel Ferrando’s Côtes du Rhône ‘Beatus Ille’ 2023.
The storied River Rhône runs through southern France from its bed in the south of the Drôme, flowing between vineyards and ancient edifices all the way to the sea. Only a small portion of it wends through the vineyards that have become its most renowned, those of Châteauneuf-du-Pape—a village you can drive through faster than you can pronounce its name. Surrounding it are the other, less flashy, less famous and less pricy vines of the Côtes du Rhône.
‘Beatus Ille’ is a quote from an ancient poem by Horace in the second Epode; it translates to ‘happy is the man,’ and may well be the mood of those who first smell the sea and wild herbs of the Provence. Ferrando chose this name to reflect the spirit of the wine, which she refers to as, “A wine of great freedom, expressing the pleasure of living in the country surrounded by good food and true friends. Beatus Ille is a cup of fresh fruit that is greedy, complex and uninhibited.”
2020 Domaine Saint Préfert ‘Clos Beatus Ille’, Côtes du Rhône ($31)
90% grenache, 5% Syrah, 5% Cinsault from a parcel named ‘La Lionne’ in the Sorgues district just at the southern border of Chateauneuf-du-Pape where the soil is a blend of red clay and pebbles. It’s 100% destemmed and fermented and aged in cement tanks. It shows loads of fresh summer fruit with a touch of Provençal herbs and a hint of peppery spice behind nicely integrated tannins.
2023 Famille Isabel Ferrando ‘Beatus Ille’, Côtes du Rhône (PRE-ARRIVAL $33) Package $499
Ferrando’s 2023 release of ‘Beatus Ille’ takes advantage of the vintage’s aggressive warmth to produce a bottling full of explosive and opulent fruit peppered with the region’s classic garrigue.
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Wine evolves and so do winemakers. When the two are in tandem, the results can be unparalleled. That is certainly the case with Isabel Ferrando’s re-interpretation of her mission in CdP.
Of course, the concept of evolution may apply to an entire appellation, and nowhere is the relatively rapid rise, fall, and rebirth of a style more evident than in Châteauneuf-du-Pape. Throughout much of its history, CdP proved to be a leathery foil to the potent and somewhat austere elegance of Bordeaux and the heady sensuousness of Burgundy. They were considered ‘southern wines’ of rustic complexity—brawny, earthy and beautiful.
But as a business, wine finds itself beholden to trends, since moving product is necessary to remain afloat. Suring the Dark Ages (roughly1990 through 2010—in part influenced by the preferences of powerful critic Robert Parker Jr.) much of Châteauneuf-du-Pape’s output became bandwagon wines, jammy and alcoholic, lacking structure and tannin, in the process becoming more polished than rustic, more lush than nuanced. For some, this was delightful; for others, it was a betrayal of heritage and terroir.
Isabel Ferrando seems to have identified the problem and corrected it. Her take on the classic, balanced style Châteauneuf-du-Pape is aided by a changing climate has also altered traditional blends, so that more Mourvèdre may be found in cuvées that were once nearly all Grenache. Mourvèdre tends to have less sugar, and so produces wine less alcoholic and jammy, adding back some of the herbal qualities once so highly prized in the appellation. But a return to old school technique has also helped.
If you survived the Fruit-Bomb era begrudgingly, you will no doubt welcome the return to the future that has begun to again take hold in Châteauneuf-du-Pape, in many ways, completing a cycle.
2020 Famille Isabel Ferrando ‘Saint Préfert’, Châteauneuf-du-Pape ($114)
2020 was the year that Isabel Ferrando put her poetry in motion, creating a cuvée of 75% old-vine Grenache, 12% Cinsault, 11% Mourvèdre, and 2% Syrah drawn entirely from the Les Serres parcel, the oldest vines she owns. This was the fruit previously used to make up her Favier and Giraud wines. 100% whole cluster made in demi-muids; the wine shows polished oak spice and toasty cedar encasing warm blackberry compote, fig and red currant. The wine is incredibly concentrated with suave tannins on a long, mocha-dusted finish.
2021 Famille Isabel Ferrando ‘Saint Préfert’, Châteauneuf-du-Pape ($114)
The 2021 vintage offered more problems than 2020, with late and devastating frosts. Old vines such as Ferrando farms did far better than younger vines.
* A more detailed analysis of Vintage 2021 is offered below.
2022 Famille Isabel Ferrando ‘Saint Préfert’, Châteauneuf-du-Pape (PRE-ARRIVAL $107) Package $499
“The 2022 vintage is an exceptional one for Châteauneuf-du-Pape in general and for us in particular. For me, it also marks a significant milestone in my work. I have rarely felt as accomplished and proud of a vintage in my career.” – Isabel Ferrando
* A more detailed analysis of Vintage 2022 is offered below
Châteauneuf-du-Pape Blanc is one of the most consistently under-rated and under-celebrated wines in an occasionally over-rated pantheon of red CdPs. Always a sensuous mouthful, the warm weather tends to ripen white varietals (generally a measured blend of Grenache Blanc, Roussanne, Clairette and/or Bourboulenc) to a tropical cornucopia. It’s this juicy explosion of exotic flavors that make the style delightful in its youth and increasingly complex with age, picking up meaty notes of leather and white truffles.
Isabel Ferrando focuses on old-vine Clairette and Roussanne from two plots in her Serres lieu-dit, using Clairette to bring minerality and the region’s characteristic salinity while the Roussanne provides honeysuckle, acacia flower and peach notes to a tannic backbone.
She began making this wine in 2009 after sharing a bottle of after 1947 Bonneau at a meal with her mentor, Henri Bonneau, the last of that vintage of old vine Clairette—grapes that still grew on her property.
2021 Famille Isabel Ferrando ‘Saint Préfert’, Châteauneuf-du-Pape Blanc ($114)
“This wine is vinified in glass globes and in foudres,” says Isabel Ferrando. “The purity and freshness conferred by fermentation in glass and the tension offered by the 12 HL oak foudres ensure a great capacity for ageing. The organic and biodynamic management allows us to achieve the right level of maturity without excessive alcohol and with remarkable natural acidity.”
60% Clairette and 40% Roussanne the wine shows acacia and lime blossom on the nose with jasmine, rosehip and pulpy mango and pineapple leading to a needle-sharp and focused finish.
2022 Famille Isabel Ferrando ‘Saint Préfert’, Châteauneuf-du-Pape Blanc ($114)
* From Ferrando’s favorite vintage—more details are given below.
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2023 Famille Isabel Ferrando ‘Saint Préfert’, Châteauneuf-du-Pape Blanc (PRE-ARRIVAL $107) Package $499
* Specifics of the 2023 vintage are offered below.
Why the magnum? Surface area plays a tremendous role in the changes that a wine undergoes during élevage and later, ‘en bouteille’, and these changes happen at a rate that is in proportion to the size of the container. In a magnum—roughly twice the size of a conventional wine bottle—the aging process is slowed down and the wine will keep fresher longer; a plus if the wine is white.
Back in 2009, Henri Bonneau assured Ferrando that she had the ability and grapes to make a wine to rival his own from the rare, old-vine, pink Clairette that is co-planted in her vineyards. The first year, Bonneau helped to do the vinification. It was Bonneau who told her, “You are who you are; embrace the wines that naturally come from your style. Go with what nature give you. Less is more.”
The wine is very gently pressed and aged for 18 months in one new large barrel. Bonneau recommended bottling it in magnum-size because there is not enough for everyone, so when it’s opened, it’s for a special occasion.
To this day, Ferrando’s tradition is to always give the first bottle each vintage to the Bonneau family. Normally, only one 600-liter barrel is made per year.
2021 Famille Isabel Ferrando ‘Vieilles Clairettes, Saint Préfert’, Châteauneuf-du-Pape ($399) (1.5 Liter)
Only produced ‘en magnum’, this is a heavily allocated gem with less than a thousand bottles made and even fewer exported. 100% Clairette from 100-year-old vines in the dry-farmed lieu-dit ‘Quartier des Serre’ renowned for being one of the most sun-drenched plots in the appellation as well as nurturing vines in well-drained, river-rolled pebble soil. An exquisite, unctuous expression of an under-appreciated varietal, the wine reflects both sun and sand with warm notes of honey, quince jam, creamy lemon curd and pink grapefruit acidity as a backbone.
Despite its potential for splendor in the glass, Grenache has never made the leap into the rarified atmosphere of the ‘noble’ grapes. But in the right hands, grown in the proper lieu-dit and farmed correctly, it can be as expressive of terroir as Pinot Noir and as complex and age-worthy as Cabernet Sauvignon. In Châteauneuf-du-Pape, it produces most favorably on sandy soils that provide delicacy and finesse, but where there is also limestone for structure, red clay for the development of rich (but not harsh) tannins and the small stones known as ‘galets’ for power.
For a grape that produces such bold and muscular wines, Grenache is thin-skinned and not overly acidic, so it must be picked at an optimum period of phenolic ripeness to avoid becoming flabby and aggressively alcoholic. Vine age is of extreme importance for Grenache, with younger cultivars making pale-colored and often mediocre wines—60-100 years appears to be an ideal age for producing wine of consistently good quality.
2016 Domaine Isabel Ferrando ‘Colombis’, Châteauneuf-du-Pape ($172)
‘Colombis’ is 100% Grenache, but a blend from three parcels in the western part of the appellation: Colombis, featuring sandy soils, Les Roues, where clay lies just beneath the surface, and Le Cristia, where sand again predominates.
2017 Domaine Isabel Ferrando ‘Colombis’, Châteauneuf-du-Pape ($172)
100% old-vine Grenache from Ferrando’s prized vineyards.
* An overview of the 2017 vintage is found below.
2019 Domaine Isabel Ferrando ‘Colombis’, Châteauneuf-du-Pape ($155)
The vines average 60 years and the concentrated juice from the small clusters produce a wine that critic Jeb Dunnuck referred to as “One of my favorite wines in the world.” Expansive in bouquet and again on the palate, the wine shows spice-accented currant preserves with incense and cola, crisp mineral undertones and an intensely long finish framed by velvety, well-integrated tannins.
2021 Famille Isabel Ferrando ‘Colombis’, Châteauneuf-du-Pape ($199)
* An overview of the 2021 vintage is found below.
2022 Famille Isabel Ferrando ‘Colombis’, Châteauneuf-du-Pape (PRE-ARRIVAL $186) Package $499
Isabel Ferrando affixed her own name to the mono-varietal wines she produced at Domaine Préfert before the change to ‘Famille Isabel Ferrando.’.
* An overview of the 2022 vintage is found below.
The roughly 51,000 acres of Cinsault in France make it the ninth-most-planted grape there, but that is just a fraction of the more than 120,000 acres that covered wine country during its peak years in the 1970s. Now, while much of the production is still used in red blends, an increasingly large share of this acreage goes into the region’s many rosés.
In Châteauneuf, it doesn’t even come in third, landing behind Grenache, Syrah and Mourvèdre in acres planted. Still, it produces copious yields and thrives in drought conditions, ripening roughly one-third of the way through the harvest cycle. For Isabel Ferrando, who inherited supremely old Cinsault vines, it is a variety worth romancing, and she pushes it front and center in her unique and luscious ‘F601.’
2018 Domaine Isabel Ferrando ‘F601’, Châteauneuf-du-Pape ($786)
‘F601’ may sound like an unpoetic name for a lieu-dit, and in fact, it is an arid block in the southern part of the estate. It is also atypical of the terroirs of Châteauneuf-du-Pape; fifteen feet below the surface, sand made of degraded quartz can be found and a bit higher up, extra moisture is lodged in a fine layer of blue clay fed by the mica gravel and rolled pebbles already visible at ground level. Of this remarkable habitat for Cinsault, Isabel Ferrando writes, “I needed 16 years of observation and apprenticeship to find the audacity to throw away the rule book and forge a personal relationship with this terroir, guided by instinct and sensuality. With the 2018 vintage, I am launching ‘F601, and for the first time, the pure and absolute expression of the fusion between this block of land and the venerable Cinsault vines planted on it in 1928. At this defining moment in my life, I am happy to share with you my sense of wonder in this iconic Châteauneuf-du-Pape. Welcome to F601!”
2020 Domaine Isabel Ferrando ‘F601’, Châteauneuf-du-Pape ($786)
* Details of the 2020 vintage are offered below.
Notebook …
2023 followed many of the climate-change patterns that have come to dominate in European viticulture. Winter and spring were relatively mild with sporadic rainfall to help replenish dry soils. February, however, saw temperatures drastically plummet as a cold snap took hold. March did not entirely shake off the winter blues, although temperatures rose enough to allow for a successful budburst and May saw the beginning of flowering. Rain continued throughout both May and June and temperatures began to climb. By July, thermometers in the southern Rhône were registering the nineties. The region had to grapple with the threat of drought, and when rain fell, it was violent and occasionally accompanied by crop-destroying hail. Fortunately, September brough cooler nights preserving both aromatics and acidity, and yields ran high. In CdP, Syrah showed well, but Grenache stole the show.
The year began with a dry winter that produced little precipitation. Spring rapidly warmed up, although April did bring a fleeting cold snap. Temperatures proceeded to rise, although both budburst and flowering were a success. May was abnormally hot but June brought some relieving rain in time for what wound up being an extremely torrid summer. Most of Châteauneuf-du-Pape baked under a Mediterranean sun, but older vines took this in stride while rot and disease were kept at bay. August brought some humidity, which helped revive some of the stressed grapes. Even so, conditions were perhaps more conducive to reds like Syrah and Grenache than whites, although whites with lower acid character like Marsanne, Roussanne and Viognier performed well. Overall, the crop was of very high quality with the promise of sophisticated, age-worthy wines.
After six blessed harvests in a row, 2021 brought earth back to earth: Temperatures were unpredictable throughout the growing season, without heat spikes, and random thunderstorms later in July served to test vignerons, including a torrential downpour in mid-September right at harvest-time. Early-budders like Syrah, having been jeopardized by spring frost, and the late-ripening grapes also found themselves under threat. Despite this, Mourvèdre, Cinsault, and Carignan fared well, while the quality of Grenache was mixed, some of it (almost unaccountably) particularly good. The best of 2021 wines focus on red rather than black fruit, on lean but elegant tannins rather than any attempts to overcompensate with an ambitious extraction regime or indulgent use of oak.
Following the extreme heat of 2019, growers were hoping for plenty of rainfall over the winter to replenish aquafers, and they got it. An astonishing 15-20 inches of rain fell between October and December, and a mild early spring saw vine buds break nearly two weeks earlier than in 2019. The summer was hot, but not unreasonably so; rains were moderate and frequent enough to prevent heat stress. Harvest for white grapes began in the third week of August, and the 2020 vintage is extremely strong in this category, however small (only 5% of Châteauneuf-du-Pape’s total). It is characterized by elegance and beauty, with a nose marked by citrus and stone fruit and a palate that combines balanced acidity with a prolonged finish
Grenache enjoyed a marvelous renaissance in 2019, and for this sun, heat and wind-loving varietal, the vintage was ideal. An abundant fruit set was followed by three heat waves interspersed with rain and more moderate temperatures, and as a result, there was no stress for the vines and ripening never shut down. Growers were able to pick at optimum ripeness and nothing much had to be done in the vineyard. The fruit’s health carried through to the cellar, with many growers reporting that their vinification were fast and efficient.
The quintessence of a year that the old winemaker’s cliché refers to ‘a vintage made in the vineyard’—based on the difficulty that growers had bringing in the harvest. Rains in May and June created a poor fruit set for Grenache, and the threat of mildew was redoubled by the failure of the mistral; a rare occurrence in Châteauneuf-du-Pape. Humidity skyrocketed, making 2018 the dampest year since 1973, and organic farmers grew frustrated that natural treatments were washed away by un-forecasted rain. The result was a harvest that in particular showed a 40%-60% reduction in Grenache. Syrah and Mourvèdre fared better, and these varieties tend to be more pronounced in the blends.
The 2017 harvest in Châteauneuf-du-Pape was small, but of very high quality, leading to limited releases and perhaps higher prices. A mild winter was followed by an idyllic spring, until a cold snap in May brought extreme rainfall; this sudden shift in conditions led many vines to suffer from mildew, which cut yields dramatically—in some instances by half. As a result, the impact on Grenache had massive consequences for blends. Fortunately, even-keel weather continued through to the September harvest.
The 2016 vintage in CdP was dominated by warm days and cool nights; ideal conditions for growing top-shelf Cinsault, Mourvèdre, Grenache and Syrah. Preceded by a relatively mild winter, the spring was dry and cool and summer exploded with plenty of sunshine and heat. September rains replenished the reservoirs enough to allow each variety to reach full phenolic ripeness. Harvest began in mid-September and, depending on vine age and terroir, some growers continued grape picking until early October. Châteauneuf red wines from this vintage are creamy and concentrated with silken texture and brilliant fruity richness, while the whites, full-bodied richness, remarkable complexity and sensational freshness.
Located within the Vaucluse department, Châteauneuf-du-Pape has a Mediterranean climate—the type found throughout much of France’s south—and characterized by hot, dry summers and cool, wet winters. It rarely snows at sea level (as opposed to the surrounding mountains, where snowfall may be considerable).
As the equal of elevation and rainfall, a third defining feature of the climate in Southern France is the wind. In a land dominated by hills and valleys, it is always windy—so much so that in Provence, there are names for 32 individual winds that blow at various times of year, and from a multitude of directions. The easterly levant brings humidity from the Mediterranean while the southerly marin is a wet and cloudy wind from the Gulf. The mistral winds are the fiercest of all and may bring wind speeds exceeding 60 mph. This phenomenon, blowing in from the northeast, dries the air and disperses the clouds, eliminating viruses and excessive water after a rainfall, which prevents fungal diseases.
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Posted on 2025.01.17 in Châteauneuf-du-Pape, Côtes-du-Rhône, France, Wine-Aid Packages