Chateauneuf du Pape!

Yesterday afternoon I was sitting at a pizzeria called La Mule du Pape in the village of Chateauneuf du Pape. It's about an hour northeast of bellegarde. The landscape is the first dramatic difference you notice when coming from the Costières de Nimes to Châteauneuf-du-Pape. The Costières is all pretty flat, and it gets a lot more hilly when you get north of Avignon. A lot rockier too. The area is known for it's distinctive rocks, typically the size of a fist, which absorb the heat during the day, and hold onto it overnight. I went to visit Yannick (the guy who was working here, who I thought was named Nick the whole two weeks we were working together) and to taste his dad's wine, Domaine Eddie Feraud. The family has 4.5 hectares, a very small domain, and they make just one cuveé of Châteauneuf-du-Pape.
We visited the vines, which are northeast of town on mostly sandy soil, and are mostly very old. They're also all goblet pruned, which means they're not trained into a trellis system, all of the plants are free-standing. This is in part because they're so old, and that's the way all the vines were done in this area in years past. Most young vines in this area are pruned this way too however, which is because machine harvesting isn't allowed here. Most harvesting machines, at least the ones I've seen here, are only compatible with trellis-trained vines. Everything is hand-harvested here, which also contributes to the drastic difference in price between Costières de Nimes and Châteauneuf-du-Pape. Nick also explained the extensive work that is done in the vineyard during the year, with meticulous pruning and green harvesting, to get higher quality grapes at harvest.
There are 13 varietals allowed in Châteauneuf; 5 white and 8 red, with Grenache at the top of the food pyramid.

I tasted 2006 and 2007 from Eddie Feraud, which were very old-school, concentrated and powerful, with no new oak or barrique. The two wines were consistent with my experience with these two vintages from this area, with the 06 being lighter and more supple and ready to drink, while the 07 was pretty monstrous and, while drinkable, my preference would be to lay it down for at least 5 years. I also went and tasted at Domaine Durieu, Yannick is friends with the winemaker there. They're a much bigger operation, with several cuveés of Châteauneuf including a white, and some Côtes du Rhône and VDP wines. Their tasting room was much more fancy and formal, and the wines a bit more new world. Again, the 07 Châteauneuf was monstrous. They were also selling 2001 Côtes du Rhône for 6 euros, so I got a bottle of that to take home.

I walked up to the actual Châteauneuf, which is basically just a few old walls, though it used to be a full castle that housed the Popes of Avignon in the 14th century.





I also took a drive northeast of town to visit Clos du Caillou, but unfortunately they don't have a tasting room so I didn't get to go for the tour.