Châteauneuf-du-Pape Blanc Enters the 21st Century

While the overall quality standard for white Rhône Valley wines has been steadily rising in recent years, none of the region’s other appellations can approach Châteauneuf-du-Pape’s rapid expansion of high-quality, even world-class bottlings. Wine lovers who understandably threw in the towel on these wines as recently as a decade ago, fed up with blowing good money on dull, alcoholic, often oxidized wines, owe it to themselves to dip their toes back into the water. I’m confident that you will be very pleasantly surprised and perhaps even thrilled by the category’s quality turnaround.

More Than an Afterthought

While white wines represent only 7% of Châteauneuf-du-Pape’s total production, don’t think for a minute that most of today’s producers treat them as afterthoughts. In fact, it’s the rare estate here that doesn’t produce at least one Châteauneuf blanc, and every year more producers expand their line-ups to include bottlings from old vines, single varieties and/or single sites. These new special cuvées are often done to dazzling effect—and frequently without the full Monty of new oak, lees stirring and amped-up ripeness that too often marks high-end, limited-production white wines from around the world.