Tasting Notes

A beautiful 2013, the 2013 Châteauneuf du Pape la Guigasse offers tons of sappy pine, garrigue, flowers and both black raspberry and black cherry fruit to go with a medium-bodied, elegant and balanced profile on the palate. Coming all from 50-year-old Grenache vines, it has beautiful sweetness of fruit, fine tannin and a great finish. I suspect it will be approachable on release, yet have 10-12 years of longevity.

Robert Parker 91 Points

About Chapelle St. Theodoric

Chapelle St. Theodoric is a project between winemaker Baptiste Grangeon and Peter Weygandt. There are two parcels; one in the lieu-dit La Guigasse, which is a pure sand soil and where the vines (all Grenache) range in age of from 50 to 100 year; and the other parcel at the top of Pignan, literally adjoining the vines of Chateau Rayas, also in pure sand and also pure, old vines Grenache. The vinification is traditional, that is to say, whole-cluster, such as employed by Jacques Reynaud at Chateau Rayas, Laurent Charvin, Henri Bonneau. The two parcels are vinified and aged and bottled separately, but with the exact same treatment, the experiment being to find what terroir differences one might find in pure sand, between vines less than 200 meters apart, both on sand, pure Grenache and traditional vinification. The result has been a most exciting and successful experiment: The difference between the wines from these two parcels is clear and distinct. La Guigasse is the slightly richer of the two. The Grand Pin, perhaps because the sand is nearly pure white, perhaps the higher elevation or due to some other factor we have not yet determined, makes a wine that is lower in alcohol, more perfumed and finer.