Château La Nerthe Châteauneuf-du-Pape Cuvée des Cadettes 2022

The Cuvée des Cadettes from Château La Nerthe comes from a historic plot in Châteauneuf-du-Pape, the first to be replanted after phylloxera by Joseph Ducos, owner of the estate in the 19th century. Its old Grenache, Mourvèdre and Syrah vines, 80 to 100 years old, take root around the château in sandy-clay soils scattered with rounded pebbles, under the Mediterranean climate of the southern Rhône Valley.

The grapes, harvested by hand, are partially destemmed and then co-fermented together in a wooden truncated-cone vat, with native yeasts. Extraction is done by daily punching down and pumping over. The wine is then aged for twelve months, roughly half in large oak vats (foudres) and the rest in barriques, a quarter of them new.

This wine reveals notes of black cherry, blackberry, blueberry, kirsch, pepper, cinnamon, camphor and liquorice. Beneath a dark red colour with violet glints, the nose is expressive and spicy. On the palate, the Mourvèdre brings power, density and freshness, the Grenache the fruit, with elegant, precise tannins and a long finish.

The cradle of wine culture in Western Europe, France owes its first vines to the Greeks of Phocaea, who settled around Marseille some twenty-six centuries ago, before the Romans spread viticulture along the Rhône and the Garonne and as far as Champagne. In the Middle Ages, Cistercian and Benedictine monks cleared the slopes of Burgundy and patiently mapped out the climats, laying the foundations of the notion of terroir. The 19th century brought the glory of the classifications, then the disaster of phylloxera, which wiped out the vineyards before they were rebuilt on American rootstocks; the creation of the appellations d'origine contrôlée in the 1930s then set the rules that would inspire the whole world. Today, France vies every year with Italy and Spain for first place in world production by volume and remains the ultimate benchmark of the Old World, as much for its age-worthy wines as for its winemaking models. Vineyards cover almost the entire country, from the cool north of Champagne and Alsace to the Mediterranean shores of Languedoc and Provence, by way of the oceanic climates of Bordeaux, the Loire and the South-West, continental Burgundy, the steep slopes of the northern Rhône and the high-altitude valleys of Savoie and the Jura. This mosaic of soils – limestone, schist, gravel or rounded pebbles – explains the extraordinary diversity of styles. As for grape varieties, Cabernet Sauvignon and Merlot dominate Bordeaux and produce structured reds, Pinot Noir is the signature of Burgundian finesse, Syrah of the depth of the Rhône, while Grenache, Gamay, Cabernet Franc and Mourvèdre cover every register, from easy-drinking wines to wines for long ageing. Among the whites, Chardonnay, Sauvignon Blanc, Chenin, Riesling and Viognier offer expressions ranging from lively and mineral to unctuous, all the way to great sweet wines. A land of benchmarks and constant discoveries, France remains the compass for wine lovers the world over.