2020 Domaine du Vieux Télégraphe Chateauneuf du Pape, Rhone Valley, France
The 2020 Châteauneuf Du Pape also showed well, with a lighter, elegant style that still brings plenty of intensity. Black cherries, mulberries, dried violets, and loamy earth define the bouquet, and it’s medium-bodied, balanced, and finesse-driven on the palate, with ripe tannins as well as a terrific sense of salinity on the finish. Give bottles 3-4 years and enjoy over the following 15+
ABOUT THIS WINE
From the stony Plateau de la Crau, in the south-east of the appellation, where
the villages of Bédarrides, Châteauneuf-du-Pape and Courthézon meet. The soil is from the Miocene epoch sitting on a thick layer of clay with high stone content, and covered by the pebble blanket of Alpine diluvium generally known as “rolled pebbles”.
65% Grenache Noir, 15% Mourvèdre, 15% Syrah, Cinsault, Clairette and sundry others 5%. Vines are 70 years old on average. Grapes are hand-picked, with double sorting at the vine, then a third sorting in the winery. Gentle pressing and selective destemming,
followed by 30-40 days’ traditional fermentation in temperature–controlled stainless steel and wooden vats. Pneumatic pressing, then systematic malolactic fermentation.
Aged 20-22 months in French oak casks (60hl). Bottled unfined and unfiltered, then released at 2 years.A classic red Chateauneuf-du-Pape, very fine and elegant. The best vintages will age for 25 years and more.
ABOUT THIS PRODUCER
The domain of the Old Telegraph has been run by the Brunier family for six generations since 1891 to be exact. This terroir marks our wines with a very special minerality, as if they had been filtered through the thick layer of rolled pebbles, left behind when the alpine glaciers melted, long before the formation of the Rhône Valley.