Domaine de la Charbonniere Chateauneuf-du-Pape Blanc 2018
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Wine
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Jeb
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Robert
Parker
Product Details
Your Rating
Somm Note
Winemaker Notes
Sumptuous bouquet of white flowers, citruses, lavender, and honey, as well as, flint stone. The mouth is round and creamy yet with a nice tension and a long finish.
Professional Ratings
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Wine Spectator
Delicious, ripe and brimming with a mix of white peach, yellow apple and green plum flavors. Keeps a racy edge through while picking up brioche and salted butter accents on the finish. Grenache Blanc, Roussanne and Clairette. Drink now through 2024.
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Jeb Dunnuck
In the same ballpark as the 2017 (as well as the same blend), the 2018 Châteauneuf Du Pape Blanc offers lots of white peach, crushed citrus, and floral notes as well as a great, salty minerality. Medium to full-bodied, balanced, and textured, this is another terrific white from the Maret family.
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Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
A blend of 40% each Grenache Blanc and Roussanne with 20% Clairette, the 2018 Chateauneuf du Pape Blanc is an easy-drinking, lush wine. Twenty percent was fermented and matured in new oak, but it's hardly noticeable, as the wine gives off scents of pineapple and guava, then adds zesty-briny notes on the finish.
Other Vintages
2021-
Jeb
Dunnuck - Vinous
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Spectator -
James
Suckling -
Jeb
Dunnuck -
Robert
Parker
- Decanter
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Wine
Spectator -
James
Suckling -
Robert
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Jeb
Dunnuck
It was in 1912 that Eugene Maret bought Domaine de la Charbonniere as a gift for his wife who was a native of Chateauneuf and the daughter of a winemaker. Their son Fernand Maret inherited a part of the Domaine and enlarged it upon the birth of his son Michel.
Today Michel Maret had over 16 hectares of vineyards located in the high plateaux of Les Brusquieres and La Crau both covered with the famous cailloux roulets and at Mourre des Perdix, sandy soil dotted with larger stones.
The passion and know-how of the winemaker, handpicking of the fruit, and careful sorting at the winery enable Michel Maret to optimize all the promise of a great terrior.
The vinification at the Domaine follows the classic style: no destemming, and three weeks fermentation in stainless steel vats, after which the wine is aged in large oak fourdes for 12-18 months.
Full-bodied and flavorful, white Rhône blends originate from France’s Rhône Valley. Today these blends are also becoming popular in other regions. Typically some combination of Grenache Blanc, Marsanne, Roussanne and Viognier form the basis of a white Rhône blend with varying degrees of flexibility depending on the exact appellation. Somm Secret—In the Northern Rhône, blends of Marsanne and Roussanne are common but the south retains more variety. Marsanne, Roussanne as well as Bourboulenc, Clairette, Picpoul and Ugni Blanc are typical.
Famous for its full-bodied, seductive and spicy reds with flavor and aroma characteristics reminiscent of black cherry, baked raspberry, garrigue, olive tapenade, lavender and baking spice, Châteauneuf-du-Pape is the leading sub-appellation of the southern Rhône River Valley. Large pebbles resembling river rocks, called "galets" in French, dominate most of the terrain. The stones hold heat and reflect it back up to the low-lying gobelet-trained vines. Though the galets are typical, they are not prominent in every vineyard. Chateau Rayas is the most obvious deviation with very sandy soil.
According to law, eighteen grape varieties are allowed in Châteauneuf-du-Pape and most wines are blends of some mix of these. For reds, Grenache is the star player with Mourvedre and Syrah coming typically second. Others used include Cinsault, Counoise and occasionally Muscardin, Vaccarèse, Picquepoul Noir and Terret Noir.
Only about 6-7% of wine from Châteauneuf-du-Pape is white wine. Blends and single-varietal bottlings are typically based on the soft and floral Grenache Blanc but Clairette, Bourboulenc and Roussanne are grown with some significance.
The wine of Chateauneuf-du-Pape takes its name from the relocation of the papal court to Avignon. The lore says that after moving in 1309, Pope Clément V (after whom Chateau Pape-Clément in Pessac-Léognan is named) ordered that vines were planted. But it was actually his successor, John XXII, who established the vineyards. The name however, Chateauneuf-du-Pape, translated as "the pope's new castle," didn’t really stick until the 19th century.