Châteauneuf-du-Pape
Mediterranean
The Southern Rhône's flagship: Grenache-led blends on stony, sun-baked soil, named for the popes who once had a summer palace here.
Overview
About Châteauneuf-du-Pape
Châteauneuf-du-Pape, or 'the pope's new castle', takes its name from the residence of the Avignon popes in the 14th century. In 1923, the estate owner Baron Le Roy helped define the appellation's boundaries and rules, an early model for the French AOC system. The bottles are often embossed with the papal crossed keys.
The rules allow up to thirteen grape varieties (eighteen counting colour variants), with Grenache usually dominant, and require hand harvesting and a minimum of 12.5% alcohol, the highest of any French appellation. The wines are ripe and warming, with red fruit, herbs, leather and spice, and the best age well.
Châteauneuf-du-Pape is marked on the map.
France
Shaded: Vaucluse. Map units are states, provinces or départements, so a smaller place appears as the larger area that contains it.
The land
Climate & terroir
Climate
Mediterranean
Hot, dry summers, mild winters and a lot of sunshine. The Mistral dries the vineyards and reduces disease, and the stones store heat and release it at night.
Terroir & soils
What the vines grow in
Galets roulés — large, rounded quartzite pebbles — over clay, sand and limestone. They store daytime heat and reduce evaporation, ripening Grenache to high sugar levels.
Go deeper
Rules, years & producers
Châteauneuf-du-Pape is a single appellation with tighter rules than most. There is no vineyard ranking, so the estate's name does the work.
AOC Châteauneuf-du-Pape
Up to thirteen varieties for red and white; hand-harvested, with a minimum of 12.5% alcohol and low maximum yields.
Red and white
Well over nine in ten wines are red. The white wines are rarer and made from grapes such as Grenache Blanc, Roussanne and Clairette.
What's grown here
Grapes
Each grape's page links back here.