Weekend Argus (Saturday Edition)
CHÂTEAUNEUF-DUPAPE FINDS BALANCE
OF THE many wonderful transformations that have characterised the past decade in wine, perhaps the most heartening has been the stylistic swing back towards balance and nuance.
This shift comes after a long period in which exaggerated red wine ruled. Ultraripe, jammy fruit bombs lacking freshness and structure (other than the tannins contributed by new oak barrels) seemed for too long to epitomise what powerful critics sought and what many producers were all too willing to provide.
These overblown wines surged to become prominent in many different regions, but none more so than Châteauneuf-du-Pape, in the southern Rhône Valley of France.
Châteauneuf has always been a big, powerful, rough-hewed wine, capable of majesty yet always a bit tattered. As I was learning about wine in the 1980s, I drank a lot of Châteauneuf, which back then was a more affordable great wine than Bordeaux or Burgundy.
I loved its intensity and its complexity.
The leathery fruit and distinctive savoury flavours were rustic in the best sense of the word, conjuring up the fragrant wild herbs known as garrigue in Provence and southern France. Years later, on the rare occasion when I drank a Châteauneuf from the ’80s, they all seemed etched with this aromatic badge of place.
Somewhere along the way, many Château neufs lost that rustic appeal. In the late 1990s, many producers began to pursue a lusher, glossier, more oaky style – just another modern, polished red, though denser and stronger than many, often at 15 to 16% alcohol.
Some critics loved this evolution, and the wines became more expensive. But while the region gained newfound popularity and wealth, the wine lost something, like a magnificent ramshackle manse transformed into a McMansion, luxurious but no longer Mediterranean.
This style reached a peak, perhaps, with the 2007 vintage, which some critics called historic. Our wine panel review of the ’07 Château neufs told a different story.
“I’ve never had a vintage like this, so lacking in structure and tannins, and with so much ripe fruit at the expense of minerality and earthiness,” one panellist said, though he added that he thought the wines would be popular.
Yet with so many regions now finding a new balance, with a greater diversity of styles to please more tastes, I have wondered whether Châteauneuf producers, too, reconsidered their path.
Like 2007, the 2016 vintage has been hailed as a great vintage in Châteauneuf. I thought it might be a good time to revisit the wines.
One recent January afternoon, the panel tasted 20 bottles of Châteauneuf-du-Pape, all from the 2016 vintage. For the tasting, Florence Fabricant and I were joined by Sabra Lewis, wine director at the Standard Grill in Manhattan’s meatpacking district, and Edouard Bourgeois, wine director at Pressoir. wine.
Twenty bottles are by no means a complete tasting, but they do offer a cross-sectional characterisation of the vintage. We buy them all retail, but we have a cap of $100 (R1340) a bottle, so luxury cuvées were not included, nor were some big names that may not have been released yet.
I don’t drink as much Châteauneuf as I once did, although the wines in their modern style have been widely popular. “It’s an easy sell,” Sabra said, “and you can find good producers in a wide range of prices.”
All of us agreed this was an excellent line-up of wines. And based on this small glimpse of the vintage,
it seems that a stylistic correction may well be under way.
We found plenty of wellmodulated bottles, despite the ripeness of the grapes in the 2016 vintage. These wines were indeed characterised by potent fruit flavours, as expected in such a year, but they were balanced by savoury herbal flavours as well, all underscored by tannins that, if not exactly stern, offered length and structure.
“They were showing great,” Edouard said.
Few wines were too oaky, and few were jammy. For me, the biggest problem was a one-dimensional fruitiness in a few of the wines that lacked the herbal, earthy quality of classic Châteauneuf-du-Pape.
One thing that has not changed for the better is price. These are expensive wines, with only three of the 20 bottles under $50, none of which made our top 10. Only two of our 10 favourites were under $65, so we did not select a best value.
There’s another way to look at it, though. Châteauneuf is a peak expression of the southern Rhône. Paying $84 for a Beaucastel, our No 2 bottle, is considerably less than you would pay for a top Hermitage or Côte-Rôtie from the northern Rhône, to say nothing of a leading Bordeaux, Burgundy or Champagne.
Our consensus favourite was the Chante le Merle Vieilles Vignes from Bosquet des Papes, a cuvée made from old-vine grapes that were not destemmed before they were crushed. (Leaving the stems on is an old-fashioned technique that can add savoury elements to the wine.) We found it to be intense and complex, powerful yet balanced.
The Beaucastel, our No 2, was savoury, with an oldschool leathery element that we liked. No 3 was the Cuvée Renaissance from Domaine de
Cristia, a rustic, chewy wine, with flavours of dark fruit and licorice. Both of these wines have higher-than-typical percentages of mourvèdre in the blend, 30% for Beaucastel and 40% for Cristia. As climate change takes hold, more producers are increasing their mourvèdre components, as it tends not to get as jammy and alcoholic as grenache does.
No 4 was La Dame Voyageuse from Domaine de la Mordorée, a more typical blend with 75% grenache, yet it, too, offered complexity and dimension. It was followed by the Clos St Antonin, a powerful, fruity wine, 100% grenache, that nonetheless offered some complex herbal flavours, and the Domaine du Vieux Télégraphe, a tannic wine with flavours of red fruits and flowers.
The Télégraphe, another historic name of Châteauneuf, was the most expensive wine in the tasting at $90. The domaine makes a second wine, Télégramme, which is generally excellent and about half the price. UNLIKE wines from the neighbouring Côtes du Rhône, Châteauneuf-duPape is not an all-purpose, everyday red.
A wine with presence and heft, it requires bold, meaty flavours and textures. And while the food of the region, Provence, may evoke summer with lovely vegetables, salads and seafood, there’s a wintry side to it as well.
When a fierce mistral wind blows, it’s time to crank out beef stews and roasted meats, and to uncork that Châteauneuf-du-Pape.
This braised beef dish, a pot roast, keeps a Provençal flavour profile, with eggplant, garlic, fennel, rosemary, orange, black olives and tomatoes dominating.
The fennel and anise liqueur in particular play nicely against the licorice flavours exhibited by some of the wines, as the slight bitterness of the eggplant and tapenade corrals their tannins. I like to braise a nice piece of tri-tip sirloin, but this recipe will suit any cut of beef you prefer for braising.
Serve the dish with broad egg noodles dressed with a splash of good olive oil. BRAISED BEEF WITH EGGPLANT Yield: 6 servings Total time: 3 hours
1 eggplant (about .455kg) in 2.5cm dice Salt
1 tbs extra-virgin olive oil
1kg piece of beef for braising (tri-tip, rump or brisket)
½ cup finely chopped fresh fennel bulb ½ cup finely chopped red onion
2 garlic cloves, minced
½ cup chopped canned San Marzano tomatoes
3 tbs pastis or other anise liqueur 4 sun-dried tomatoes in oil, slivered
1 cup dry red wine
1 cup beef or vegetable stock
Ground black pepper
2 branches fresh rosemary
2 branches fresh thyme
1 tsp grated orange zest
1 tbs black olive tapenade
Place eggplant in a colander, dust with salt and set aside 20 minutes. Meanwhile, heat a 3.8-litre stovetop casserole on medium-high and add the oil.
Dry the beef and brown it on all sides, about 10 minutes. Remove from the pan to a plate. Turn off heat.
Rinse and dry the eggplant. Reheat the casserole on medium and sear the eggplant, turning frequently, until it is lightly browned, glossy and still somewhat firm, about 10 minutes.
Transfer the eggplant to a bowl. Add the fennel, onion and garlic to the casserole and sauté on low heat until translucent.
Add the diced tomatoes and pastis and cook, stirring, to deglaze the casserole. Add the sun-dried tomatoes, wine and stock, and bring to a simmer.
Season with pepper. Add the rosemary and thyme. Return the meat to the casserole, cover and simmer on low heat for 2 hours, turning once or twice during the cooking. After 2 hours the meat should be tender. If not, give it another 15 or 20 minutes cooking. Remove it to a cutting board.
Discard herb branches from sauce, and stir in the orange zest and tapenade. Season to taste with salt. Add the eggplant to the casserole and simmer 5 minutes, just to reheat it.
Slice the beef and arrange on a platter. Give the sauce another quick heating, then spoon it with the eggplant over and around the meat and serve. |