Vieux Télégraphe Châteauneuf-du-Pape

 Vieux Télégraphe is the largest holder of the famous La Crau field, with its large pebble stones. This is where its Châteauneuf-du-Pape comes from. 2015 was a warm vintage. Given the heat reflections from the stones, I was concerned about this year's flagship wine.

However, the 2015 Vieux Télégraphe Châteauneuf-du-Pape deals with this well. The heat is not at all seen in the wine. Red and black cherry fruits, raspberry, and some blue fruits flavour the palate in multiple layers. This leads to a complex mouthfeel. Olive, spice, underbrush flavours deliver  savoury notes.

This is an elegant wine, bordered by firm tannins and a finish which lasts and lasts. One for the ages.

Score: 96/+++ 

 

Château de Vaudieu

 Château de Vaudieu is not as well known as Vieux Télégraphe or Château de Beaucastel, but I think it should be. It is the largest continuous holding in Châteauneuf -du-Pape, with 70ha. As such, it has seven different soil types on this property with sand, limestone, and large pebbles dominating parts of the property.

These different soil types invite different bottlings, and this is what Chateau de Vaudieu does. I tasted three of their wines from the 2016 vintage.

The 2016 Château de Vaudieu Châteauneuf -du-Pape is the base wine. It is Grenache dominant. The wine is predominantly composed of grapes from sandy soils. The flavour profile is quite intriguing, with red, blue, and black fruit flavours dominant on different parts of the palate. There are licorice flavours and some spice. The wine has a medium concentration. Firm tannins overshadow the fruit a bit. This is a solid, but not outstanding wine.

Score: 92/++

The 2016 Château de Vaudieu Val de Dieu is from a little valley which gave the name to the Chateau. The soil is large pebbles and red sandstone. This wine has a similar flavour profile, with darker fruits more dominant. This wine is more rounded, more elegant, with quite ripe Grenache flavours shining through. The mouthfeel is quite deep, as chalky, dry tannins lead to a dry finish.

Score: 94/++

The 2016 Château de Vaudieu L'Avenue is stunning. This wine is 100% Grenache from a small block of sandy soil. Black cherries and blue fruit flavours avoid any raspberry. This wine is powerful, concentrated, and rich, yet at the same time elegant and not dense. It has been described as a 'plush sexpot of a wine'. The tannins are ample, yet silky. I loved this wine.

Score: 97/+++ 

  

  

Three Châteauneuf-du-Pape

 I am continuing the theme of Grenache a bit more. It is not often you find a 100% Grenache in the Southern Rhone and possibly not at all in Châteauneuf-du-Pape, the most highly regarded region there. Still, this is where I am heading today. I drank three Chateauneuf-du-Pape wines over three consecutive nights, all from 2016. This is what I found.

Those who have followed my blog for some years will know that I have a soft spot for Vieux Télégraphe. The 2016 Vieux Télégraphe is quite a ripe wine, yet it is balanced with complex flavours of blackberry, black cherry, olive, tobacco, and spice. Despite being full-bodied, it is an elegant wine. It feels very settled, with finesse and a smooth finish. The Grenache component in this GSM is 65%. These old vines are grown on the famous rocky soil of La Crau. This wine is quite dark and savoury, maybe not quite expected for a Grenache dominant wine.

Score: 96/+++

The 2016 Château de Vaudieu Châteauneuf-du-Pape is not the top bottling of this chateau, and it certainly did not measure up to the Vieux Télégraphe. The grapes are grown on sandy soil. This wine appears bigger in the mouth, reflecting the very dark colour. It is a juicier, more forward wine with earthy flavours. I would have anticipated a larger Shiraz component. However, this wine is 80% Grenache, most of the rest is Shiraz, with some Mourvedre. So it is a dark wine, but Grenache dominant, and grown in sand. Go figure?

Score: 92/++

The 2016 Château de Beaucastel Châteauneuf  is a more energetic wine. It is a lifted wine with pronounced acidity. I see a bigger Grenache influence in this wine. However, the Grenache component is only 30%, the lowest between these three wines.

Score: 94/+++

I found this wine comparison totally baffling.

Vieux Télégraphe Chateauneuf-du-Pape

 On of the wine trends I find annoying is that new and unproven wineries and wine ventures decide to charge the same prices that wineries who worked for decades to establish and refine their styles have managed to command. It is therefore always a pleasure for me to grab a bottle of a well known producer where I know what I will get. This has certainly been the case with the 2016 Vieux Télégraphe Chateauneuf-du-Pape.

This wine is full-bodied and quite ripe, with the grapes grown on the famous pebble field of La Crau. The fruit flavours are raspberry, but also dark mulberry, often coming from old vine Grenache, which dominates this wine. The big mouthfeel includes savoury flavours of mushroom and earth, which add to the complexity of this wine. Persistent tannins balance the flavours of this big wine, which finishes relatively long and soothing.

This wine has a long life ahead. It is a bit early to drink now and will develop further complexities and nuances down the track.

Score: 95/++ 

Domaine Santa Duc Le Pied De Baud Chateauneuf

 This 2015 Domaine Santa Duc Le Pied De Baud Chateauneuf-Du-Pape is a bright wine. Home for them is Gigondas, but they have this plot in the northern part of Chateauneuf. The soil is a mixture of sand, clay, limestone and pebbles. I believe clay dominates. The vines are 90 years old, on average. The wine is Grenache dominant (80%).

The winery aims its wines squarely at the American market. So this is full-bodied, ripe, but also quite energetic. The palate is an attractive mix of cherry flavours, earthy characters, and spice. The finish is long and persistent, but the alcohol is distracting.

Score: 92/+ 

Vieux Télégraphe 'La Crau' Chateauneuf-du-Pape

 How do you photograph a label with writing around almost half the bottle? I tried something a little different. Not very professional, but quite psychedelic, don't you think?

 

The 2010 Vieux Télégraphe 'La Crau' is already quite developed. The colour is a blend of purple, brown, and orange.

This full-bodied wine still has primary fruit tasting of raspberry and plum. As always, savoury characteristics are strong in this wine, with earthy notes and spice adding complexity on the palate. The structure of this wine is still quite balanced, but it feels like it may not hold together that much longer. The tannins are firm and grainy, and the wine finishes long.

I recommend to drink this wine now.

Score: 93/++

Grenache

 Grenache is experiencing a renaissance, not just because it was International Grenache Day yesterday. The flavour profile appeals, and the wines are not as heavy and serious as, say, Cabernet Sauvignon or Shiraz. Here are some Grenache and Grenache infused wines I tasted a couple of days ago.

Having said this, the 2010 Chateau de Beaucastel is quite a massive Chateauneuf-du-Pape. This wine is still bright. The raspberry and cranberry flavours shine through. There is licorice as well. The tannins are soft. However, the wine is a little hot on the finish (93 points).

The 2010 Alegre Valgañón Garnacha from Rioja demonstrates some of the challenges with Grenache. This wine has some herbal and eucalypt characteristics, which comes when the wine is picked a bit early out of fear it might get too alcoholic otherwise. The signature raspberry fruit is there, but also some black fruited notes and leather. This is quite a complex wine, mature, and no doubt based on very old vines (94 points). 

Marco Cirillo is my favorite Grenache producer in Australia (there are a couple of serious challengers emerging). He has been focused on this variety from the beginning tending to his fabulous sandy soils vineyard in Vine Vale. The 2012 Cirillo 1850 Grenache is based on perhaps the oldest Grenache vines in the world. This wine is hugely perfumed. The raspberry flavours are very clean and pure supported by savoury characteristics. This is a luscious wine with a long finish (96 points).

The 2009 Château de Fonsalette Réservé Côtes du Rhône is the most expensive wine in this line-up. I found it a bit disappointing. While it had a sweet fruit core, the overwhelming impression evolved from vegetable and herbal notes with tomato and anise flavours quite prominant (90 points).

A positive surprise was the 2012 Domaine Léon Barral Faugères 'Jadis'. Faugères is a subregion in the Languedoc with special red sand and limestone soils. The vineyard is biodynamically managed. This wine is a blend of 50% Carignan, 30% Shiraz, 20% Grenache. This wine is very bright and fresh,  with ripe raspberry and dark fruit,  and a big mouthfeel. This is quite a funky wine, bold and dense. There is a higher acidity in this wine than in many Grenaches and the tannins are dry. Well managed Carignan appears to be the major contributor to this profile (94 points). 

A Range of Rhône

Rhône wines should really attract more interest in Australia, given the strong showing of Shiraz and Grenache in this country. Comparisons are interesting for many reasons; Grenache on its own is virtually not bottled in France, and the Shiraz styles vary in different Northern Rhône subregions. In a recent tasting, I could look at four quite different wines from the Rhône.

The 2014 Pierre Gaillard Clos de Cuminaille from St. Joseph has a fascinating flavour profile. This is a light and fresh wine, with red fruits, earth, leather, spice and herbs creating a lifted blend, almost like a Pinot Noir. It has length, too. The only disappointment after such a nice taste is the lack of tannins (94 points).

Quite different was the second wine, a 2016 Domaine Santa Duc Habemus Papam Chateauneuf-du-Pape. This is a much bigger wine with dark fruits on the palate and a lush texture. The tannins are firm, and the slightly confected finish gives the Grenache component, otherwise not so obvious, away (93 points).

The third wine was from Cornas, a 2009 Matthieu Barret Domaine du Coulet Billes Rotres. This was a dark fruited wine, 100% Shiraz. There was a lot of pepper on the nose and palate, lavender and sweet honey notes made for an intriguing taste. Overall, this wine was very intense and I thought it was slightly hot, although the quoted alcohol was not especially high (92 points). 

The final wine was the 2015 Bernard Faurie Hermitage (white cap). This is a rare wine, made in small volumes from arguably the best subregion, Hermitage, and a blend of two vineyards. This is quite a delicate wine at this stage whose complexity will only unfold over time.  Violets and delicate raspberry flavours show upfront, but one can detect licorice and meaty notes underneath. Finesse is the dominant theme (95 points).

Four Rhône wines, four completely different expressions. There is a lot of complexity in this long region. This tasting suggests it is worth unpacking. 

Chateauneuf du Pape 2016

This is a report on a brief tasting of only four wines from the region. I regard the first two at entry level wines, but I was curious how they would look in a vintage such as the great 2016.

The  2016 Font du Vent CDP shows pretty fruit, raspberry and red cherry flavours. There is also some licorice. This is an easy, medium-bodied wine to drink, with a slightly harsh finish (88 points).

The 2016 Pierre Usseglio CDP has a similar fruit profile, but more intensity. There are also some chocolate flavours. This is a fresh wine with a relatively simple finish (91 points).

Frankly, I would prefer to go for a Cote du Rhone blend at a third of the price.

The third wine was the 2016 Vieux Telegraphe CDP. I must admit, I am a big fan of this estate. There is great integrity in the wines, savoury flavours are always prominent, and the wines are never overblown. This wine tastes of red and black cherries, and it is savoury as expected. The wine is very silky and elegant, but the power is evident on the long finish. I rate this wine 95 points now, but it could go higher in a couple of years.

Then there was one wine from the Gigondas, the 2016 Domaine le Pallieres Terrasse du Diable. This wine has quite a different flavour profile. Red and black fruits are wound up in earthy notes, and the acidity is considerable (91 points).

Vieux Télégraphe Piedlong

As I am waiting for the apparently amazing 2015 Rhône wines, I thought I might wet my appetite with a wine from one of my favorite producers, Vieux Télégraphe. The 2012 vintage was generally not great in France, with the exception of the Rhône. Therefore I was looking forward to the 2012 Vieux Télégraphe Piedlong.

Daniel Brunier, the half owner and winemaker, is a serious and intelligent man. He is modest and not interested in wine fashion trends. His objective is to make authentic wines speaking of the soil the grapes are grown on (I know this sounds like a platitude these days, but it is true in his case.)

The Piedlong comes from the heart of Chateauneuf-du-Pape, just north of the village, from a vineyard with heavy clay and many rocks or pebbles. This wine is full-bodied, with raspberry and blackberry flavours. It is basically dark fruited. Despite the Grenache dominance,  it is a savoury wine showing a lot of minerality and some leanness. The wine is fresh and elegant and has good length.

I liked this wine a lot.

Score: 92/+++

Clos Des Papes Chateauneuf-Du-Pape

I was really looking forward to this wine tonight. It was supposed to be a bit of a treat. The 2005 Clos des Papes Chateauneuf-du-Pape won the Wine Spectator 'wine of the year' some years back, and I was pleased to score a couple of bottles. Then this happens: corked - not massively, but enough to take the pleasure out of it entirely.

You cannot tell from the picture.

This is ironic, as I was planning to write a piece about the problems we have in the Southern Hemisphere with cork, which seems much more pronounced than in Europe. We are getting the second cut, being far away from the suppliers. I still think that a good cork is a superior closure for red wine (not white wine), and that it allows perfect ageing in a good cellar. I would also like to note that James Halliday, who fiercely argues against cork, has a non air-conditioned cellar. (I thought you wanted to know.) However, this is a big disappointment, and you don't want this to happen too often. I have not looked into this, but I find it hard to accept that quality control=chemical analysis cannot weed out the bad corks beforehand. 

Vieux Telegraphe Current Releases

My tasting at Vieux Telegraphe was one of the highlights of my 'Tour de France' last year. Now Daniel Brunier, one of the two owner brothers, has come to Sydney to show his latest releases.

This tasting confirms why I like these wines so much. Half the wines were from 2013, which was not a great vintage due to the cold conditions. Yet there is a style to these wines which cuts across the different terroir, as well as different years. All red wines are Grenache dominated, yet the emphasis is not on fruit. It is on earth, minerality, vibrancy, balance, and a line leading to a smooth and satisfying finish. These wines have a personal signature.

The two Chateauneuf-du-Pape wines from 2013 are the Telegramme and the Vieux Telegraphe, the flagship wine. They both come from the famous stony plateau of Le Crau, where they own about 70 hectares, a huge holding for the area. The Telegramme is of young vines, on average 20 years old. It is a fresh and savoury wine (92 points), which beat its famous sibling this year. It seems the grapes of the old vines did not fully ripen, which can be a problem for Grenache. The Vieux Telegraphe is earthy, and a bit rough, not fully rounded (91 points).

The star of the tasting was the 2012 Domaine La Roquete Piedlong Chateuneuf-du-Pape, from a property further west. This wine was fragrant, very fine, savoury and very, very elegant. The wine was long on the palate, floating along with vibrancy and sheer drinkability (95 points).

Danielle Brunier makes two wines from the Gigondas. The 2013 Terrasse du Diable comes from a vineyard at 300-400 meters altitude. It had cherry and raspberry flavours, but suffered in a similar way to the Vieux Telegraphe (90 points). In contrast, the 2013 Les Racines is based on old vines. It is more intense and delivered a savoury, yet elegant profile with a long finish. A remarkable wine for this vintage (94 points).

Vieux Telegraphe

The famous plateau La Crau, Chateauneuf-du-Pape

Daniel Brunier,co-owner, and the wines tasted

A remarkable tasting was my second last in France, at Vieux Telegraphe. At first, Daniel Brunier took me on a tour across the vineyards of La Crau. This plateau, on the east side of Chateauneuf-du-Pape, is covered in large rocks.  The clay soil starts a couple of meters below the surface. As a result, the waterholding capacity is good, but the roots have to go deep. They pick up many nutrients along the way.

The philosophy of the winery is to deliver finesse to the wines. This is more important than fruit. Only old oak is used, and grapes are often not destemmed.

The first wine I tasted was the 2014 Megaphone. This is a new wine from Ventoux. The grapes, 70% Grenache, 30% Shiraz, are quite young. Still, the wine is not overly fruit forward, but quite restrained (90 points). Then came the 2012 Les Pallieres, Les Racines from Gigondas. This 62 acre vineyard sits in the lower part of an amphitheatre. It is 80% Grenache, with 30% stems. The wine is a bit austere, with minerality flavours a key feature, before finishing on firm tannins (90 points). 

The next red was the first from Chateauneuf-du-Pape, the 2012 Telegramme. This 60% Grenache based wine is pretty. It is fresh and elegant, with quite a soft mouthfeel (92 points).  Then it gets more complex with the 2011 Piedlong. This wine is based on 90% Grenache and 10% Mourvedre. 50% of the grapes are not destemmed. Flavours are sour cherry, and there are salty notes as well. The palate is firm, yet elegant, with quite a unique profile (93 points).

Then we compared two Vieux Telegraphe. The current one is from 2012. It is a GSM blend, with 65% Grenache. The vines are 70 years old on average. 30% of the grapes are not destemmed. This is a wine of intense fruit flavours, yet elegant and with great balance (95 points). The 2001 comes from a comparable vintage. It is still fresh, has again a bit of the saltiness on the palate, with silky tannins and a lift on the finish (96 points).

What I admired about these wines is the common philosophy that was expressed in them. Here was not a series of individual wines, but a thread that cut across them. Beautiful balance, finesse, clearly a great ability to age. I fell in love with this wine style.      

Domaine Pierre Usseglio Chateauneuf Du Pape

Chateauneuf-du-Pape is such an attractive wine style when it is well executed: probably the most seductive, yet serious wine we know. The 2006 Domaine Pierre Usseglio Chateauneuf-du-Pape fits this category.

The colour is dark, showing signs of mellowing. There is a full spectrum of berries on the palate: raspberries, blackberries and other wild forest berries: quite complex. The secondary flavours are coming through as well, with mushroom and forest floor. They are in perfect balance with the primary fruit. The earthy characters become dominant on the back palate, in an elegant, almost aristocratic style. The oak supports and the tannins are quite soft. This wine is about fruit flavours maturing in a harmoneous fashion.

Score: 95/+++

2006 Chateauneuf-du-Pape

I also tried a number of 2006 Chateauneuf-du-Papes. I was generally impressed with the quality of the line-up. The wines showed good fruit, although not as lush as 2005, but with good structure as well. Most wines were in the $50-$100 bracket. All these wines are dominated by Grenache, and usually some Shiraz and Mouvedre.

My favorite were the wines by Pierre Usseglio. The standard wine showed complex cherry flavours with a very fine texture, and silky tannins leading to a long finish. The 'Cuvee de Mon Aieul' showed more ripeness and elegance. Domaine et Selection was equally good, Domaine Senechaux, as a 100% Grenache, had less structure and was a bit fruity. On the other end of the spectrum was Domaine de la Cote de l'Ange with earthy characters and dry tannins.