Wed 8th June - Chateauneuf du Pape

We awoke this morning to rain but thankfully it stopped while we were having breakfast.
Today's adventure was to Chateauneuf du Pape, whose wines we have coveted for many years. This town, which is only about 20 minutes drive from Sablet, was the summer residence of the Popes when they were in Avignon. The Pope's castle on the hill above the town, commissioned by Pope John XXII was built between 1317 and 1333. After the papacy returned to Rome at the start of the 15th century the castle was abandoned and it started to fall into ruin, which was accentuated by the Wars of Religion. In the 16th century Protestants occupied the village and made the castle their base camp however when they left they pillaged it and set it ablaze. After the French Revolution the castle, as was the case for all of the church's property, was sold by auction. In order to keep their castle the villagers joined forces and bought it. Unfortunately the castle soon became used as a quarry for stones and several parts of it were dismantled. The castle suffered a final insult during WW2 when it was occupied by the Germans and turned into a communication and anti-aircraft observation station. A large part of it was destroyed deliberately when the German troops withdrew in 1944. Today all that remains is the southern wall as you can see in one of today's photos.
Now that today's history lesson is finished I'll get onto the lighter side of the day - the wines !! We tasted several different styles and there is a very obvious difference between the wines made in the traditional style from old vines and those that are made in a lighter style to be drunk younger. Once you've tried the tradional wine it's hard to go back to the new style - the only problem is that they are about 3 times the price - approx 50 Euro for a 2005 vintage. We discovered that the tradional wines are a blend of grenache, shiraz and mouvedre which is similar to some of the better Australian blends.

After lunch of canard aux olives (duck with provencale olives) we drove back to Sablet stopping at one of the wine cooperatives in nearby Gigondas for another tasting. The Gigondas wines are also a GSM blend so it was interesting to compare them to the Chateauneuf du Pape wines. All of the Cotes du Rhone appellation villages tend to have their own cooperatives where the wines are made and bottled. They all offer free tastings whereas the vineyards themselves charge for this. In addition to bottle sales they also offer bulk sales of Cotes du Rhone wines in varying quantities up to a 22 litre "cubitainer". The local coop in Sablet has recent vintage Cotes du Rhone for sale at 2 Euro per litre (Jan is in heaven !!).