Chateauneuf du Pape - Les Grenaches de Pierre

From our sommelier team

Les Grenaches de Pierre is a 100% Grenache Châteauneuf-du-Pape drawn from vines the domaine describes as a hundred years old, grown on pure sandy soils in the Crau area and around Pignan. The estate makes it with gentle extraction — an initial cold maceration, then fermentation at around 28°C lasting roughly three weeks to a month — and ages it in cement vats rather than new oak, which keeps the fruit and perfume unmasked. It is left unfined and unfiltered. The domaine's own note describes a blood-red colour with crimson edges, aromas of basalt, tobacco leaf, cooked fruit and juicy prune, and a powerful, structured palate of strawberry compote, raspberry and cherry touched with thyme, wild juniper and violet rockrose.

The cement ageing is the point of this cuvée, not an incidental detail. Sandy soils in Châteauneuf tend to give a more perfumed, finer-boned Grenache than the famous galet-strewn parcels, and raising it in inert cement rather than wood keeps that lift intact — so expect aromatic transparency rather than the darker, oak-framed profile some Châteauneuf drinkers anticipate. Serve it slightly cooler than you would a heavier southern Rhône, and give it air; the domaine bottles it unfined and unfiltered, so a little sediment is normal and not a fault.