This most famous of the Cotes du Rhône wine villages is inundated with tourists, and today we joined them! Châteauneuf-du-Pape means “new castle of the Pope” named for the Pope’s summer retreat - now a ruin capping the beautiful-t0-see, little-to-do hill town. Wine-loving popes planted the first vines here in the 1300s. The soil is very rocky, perfect for making a good wine grape. The stones retain the sun’s heat and force the vines to struggle, resulting in a lean grape - lousy for eating - but ideal for producing strong wines. We scoped out the village then decided where to spend our time on tastings. We struck gold! Our favourite was the Domaine Durieu where we engaged for a couple of hours with the manager of the tasting room, Jean-Christophe. I had no idea that Châteauneuf-du-Pape also produced an amazing white which started our wine tour. The dry white with a citrus and peach nose was a hit with all of us. ”Yes, we’ll take a case!” Then on to the reds. We sampled the “Tradition” 2012, 2013, 2015, 2016 and 2017 and it was remarkable how much the vintages changed in flavour and intensity before settling on the 2012 as a group favourite. Last of the wine tasting was Domaine Durieu’s “Lucile Avril” named after the grandmother of the proprietor of the winery. It is a much more exclusive production with only 2500 bottles produced per year and with an alcohol content of 15.5%. Yummy. We added a couple of 2014 vintages to our collection, then left for a late lunch on the deck of the owner’s restaurant, “La Table des Vignerons,” located just next door to the tasting room. Here we found an even more exclusive wine produced by Domaine Durieu which was sold out in their store and no longer available. Even next year’s production is already spoken for. It’s a lovely rich red wine that is 100% old Grenache called “L’eperdu” of which the winemaker produces only 500 bottles per annum. The grapes are selected by hand, one-by-one, and pressed lightly to recover the ”first juice” from which this beauty is made. Tim & I decide we have to try it with lunch even at the relatively pricey 100 💶 per bottle. YOLO. It was amazing! After lunch we hit another couple of tasting rooms and added a few more bottles to our collection before finishing up at Domaine Durieu where Jean-Christophe had invited us back to view le cave (cellar) and try a few more samples from bottles not yet on the market. What a great day in the most exquisite wine region in France!
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