The Dynamism of Chateauneuf-du-Pape and Portugal’s White Wine Revolution: Weekly Tasting Report (April 19-25)

Our tastings of 852 wines over the past week focused on the big guns of Europe: France, Italy, Portugal and Spain, with memorable bottles coming out of each of these countries.

Senior Editor Stuart Pigott and Tasting Manager Kevin Davy were deeply immersed in the wines of the southern Rhone of France, most importantly those of Chateauneuf-du-Pape. Stuart said the most important takeaway for him from a “very intense and inspiring week” was the dynamism he saw in the region. “For example, the one perfect wine we found, the Domaine du Pegau Châteauneuf-du-Pape Cuvée Ella 2020, is not only a new wine, it is also a stylistic innovation for the producer.“

Stuart said it amply fulfills the promise it showed last year, when he tasted it from barrel: “Cuvée Ella is a self-confidently modern wine that can stand against the finest that the world can offer. It is very suave and perfectly harmonious in spite of the almost overwhelming fragrance and concentration.”

One downside for the wine is that only 600 bottles were made, and they are very expensive, Stuart added.

Only a whisker behind the Cuvee Ella was the enormously concentrated and structured Château Mont Redon Châteauneuf-du-Pape Le Plateau 2019, which, for Stuart, was “the widescreen wine of the vintage in this appellation,” although it has not yet been released.

“For us the great strength of Chateauneuf-du-Pape is the large number of great wines that are well-distributed and moderate in price,” he said. “Read the notes below to find these gems.“

Stuart picked the Domaine de Vieux Télégraph Châteauneuf-du-Pape La Crau 2020 as one of the highlights “because it squares the circle of southern richness and spring-like freshness. The salty minerality and dried-flower character are stunning.“

The other thing that struck our Rhone team was the enormous diversity of Chateauneuf’s wines. Not only does the appellation allow 13 different grape varieties, it also allows producers to combine them as they wish and to make mono-varietal wines of any of them. This is the opposite of Burgundy, where for most appellations only one grape is allowed for reds and only one for whites.

“We were surprised and delighted by the quality and diversity of the dry whites,” Stuart said. “The freshness of the Raymond Usseglio Châteauneuf-du-Pape Blanc 2022 must be tasted to be believed. This is a game-changing wine,” Stuart said of the cuvee, which is composed of a third each of clairette, Grenache blanc and roussanne and was bottled very early.

The contrast between that wine and the highest-rated white, the Château de Beaucastel Châteauneuf-du-Pape Blanc Roussanne Vieilles Vignes 2021, is dramatic. This simultaneously creamy, stony and delicately zesty masterpiece is a mono-varietal roussanne from ancient vines. It was bottled after long cask maturation.

The Rhone team’s tastings reflected the mix of 2021, 2020 and late-released 2019s plus back vintages you find in the market. “Some critics damned the 2021 vintage even before the harvest was finished, and the 2021 red wines are certainly more variable than those from the previous vintages, but there are some excellent wines,” Stuart explained.

READ MORE TOP 100 WINES OF FRANCE 2022

The highest rated of these is the not-yet-released Chateau de Beaucastel Châteauneuf-du-Pape Hommage à Jacques Perrin 2021, which is very dense and vivid with excellent aromatic complexity.

Although Stuart and Kevin tasted fewer wines from Gigondas, this is clearly the other outstanding appellation in the southern Rhone.

“The mistake many people make is to think of Gigondas as the smaller brother of Chateauneuf-du-Pape, but neither of the highly-rated Gigondas from Santa Duc taste like Chateauneuf-du-Pape,” Stuart said.

The Rhone team has already moved to the northern Rhone, where the syrah grape dominates red wine production, the landscape is rockier and the slopes steeper. Another slew of their notes will follow next week, including many for syrah reds from the north.

Meanwhile, James and Associate Editor Andrii Stetsuik spent five days in Portugal last week after almost three weeks in Bordeaux rating more than 1,100 2022 barrels samples and a few hundred top 2020s. They expected to find some impressive reds and Ports during their quick sojourn, but the biggest surprise was few dozen bright and exciting whites they discovered. Portugal seems to be on a white wine revolution, and we want to find more!

It came as no surprise that the best was the work of Dirk van der Niepoort and friends, who makes extraordinary Ports but who is arguably the godfather of great whites in Portugal. His main winery is in the heart of the Douro Valley, although he makes whites throughout the country. He is a proponent of clean, fresh and transparent whites. James has known him for almost four decades and has followed his rise to prominence. His Douro white, Coche, is a stunning bottle with all the subtle complexity of a top white Burgundy. One of his disciples makes one of the most exciting whites in Dâo at Vinhos Imperfeitos.

We suggest you try some Portuguese whites when you get the chance, whether it’s a fresh and steely alvarinho from vinho verde or a structured gouveio from the Douro. It’s worth getting to know the wines, grapes and the regions. Stay tuned for more.

SOAVE COMES ALIVE

In Italy, Senior Editor Ned Goodwin MW was tapping into the white wines of Veneto, where he found a growing buzz for Soave over the more anodyne, and pervasive, pinot grigio or Prosecco.

“Soave is an attractive fortressed town, nestled into the hillsides of the central Veneto, planted to cultivars garganega and the increasingly fashionable trebbiano di Soave,” Ned explained about the region. “Although the bulk of Soave is made from the lower-lying alluvial plains in the DOC that abut the Adige River, the wines that captivated me come from higher up – from the volcanic rock that dominates in the eastern sub-zone of Monteforte d’Alpone to the rarer limestone found throughout the warmer western sub-zone.”

Yields from the terraced vines, some up to 80 years old, are inherently lower than the generous permitted norm, and the Soave wines must be a minimum of 70 percent garganega and up to 30 percent trebbiano di Soave (which only comprise 5 percent of the plantings in the area). “Mercifully, the lousy trebbiano di Toscana has been abolished, yet chardonnay, pinot bianco or sauvignon may be used,” Ned said. “None of the top wines, however, contain any of these international arrivistes. There is also a strong proclivity for single-vineyard wines.”

READ MORE TOP 100 WINES OF ITALY 2022

Ned said the top producers in Soave include Gini, Suavia, Pieropan, Inama and Pra, all of whom he visited, along with Cantina Filippi, “a fine source of textural wines that I was unable to visit.”

Gini might be his favorite, though: “The style here is one of texture, with a phenolic pucker and the breadth of larger format wood, serving as structural attributes of the top wines. Gini’s Salvarenza Vecchie Vigna 2020 hails from the oldest vines in the region, pre-phylloxera to 140 years. The fruit is often flecked with botrytis. A tour de force! Older wines, too, particularly the single cru La Frosca 2013, were outstanding.”

The historic estate of Suavia also caught Ned’s attention. “The three sisters who run it today have shifted gears to one of a reductive precision, preferring cool tank fermentations, which Alessandra Tessari opines, ‘allow the volcanic energy to run’ through the wines, rather than oak,’” Ned said.

“They have commissioned precise geological studies throughout their vineyards. Suavia is the strongest champion, too, of trebbiano di Soave, an earlier-ripening variety than garganega and one charged with higher levels of natural acidity – a bulwark against warming temperatures. It is bottled as Massififtti as a straight rendition and is invariably brilliant, irrespective of the vintage. Here are wines of considerable detail, a smoky waft of mineral pungency and rapier-like freshness, all on show in the Castellaro 2020.”

In our Hong Kong office, we started tasting samples from Spain, including some saline, mineral whites with Atlantic freshness that hit our sweet spot. If you are on the hunt for  briney, minerally attractive albariños, chances are that the tangy and saline whites from Spain's Basque Country will deliver with their strikingly gastronomic attributes. In Bizkaiko Txakolina, lesser-known grapes like hondarrabi zuri, hondarrabi zerratia, hondarrabi beltza and petit courbu make fresh, saline and austerely sharp and acid-driven wines with lower alcohol. The best examples also deliver texture and tension on the palate. Scroll down to find some textured and excellent examples, such as the Gorka Izagirre Bizkaiko Txakolina Zura 2021 and Itsasmendi Bizkaiko Txakolina Leioa Paradisuak 2020.

We also finished tasting around 200 Uruguayan wines. One of the highlights was the Bodega Garzón Pinot Noir Garzón Petit Clos Block #87 2020, a pure, savory yet mineral pinot noir that shows impressive purity and structure from the warm and dry 2020, a vintage that winemaker German Bruzzone compared to the classic 2018. On the other hand, if you're more fond of rich and hedonistic tannats from Uruguay, Bouza will flatter with its Bouza Tannat Canelones B3 Parcela Única 2020 – a seamless, opulent wine from an “easier vintage,” according to winemaker Eduardo Boido. Unlike some of his tannats that came with  dauntingly high alcohol in 2020, the B3 Parcela checked the boxes for opulence and balance, with plenty of juiciness in the fleshy, rich fruit along with excellent freshness.

– Stuart Pigott, James Suckling, Ned Goodwin MW and Zekun Shuai contributed reporting.

The list of wines below is comprised of bottles tasted and rated during the past week by James Suckling and the other tasters at JamesSuckling.com. They include many latest releases not yet available on the market, but which will be available soon. Some will be included in upcoming tasting reports.

Note: You can sort the wines below by country, vintage, score and alphabetically by winery name. You can also search for specific wines in the search bar.