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Châteauneuf-du-Pape Vintage 2018
The AOC Châteauneuf-du-Pape is one of the most beautiful in the Rhone Valley. It is famous for its red wines but also offers very nice white wines. Quality has no price! This is why on each vintage all the grape varieties planted in our plots allow us to best express the terroir that is ours.
Exceptional in many respects, the 2017 vintage, with its climate records, gave hope for a much more normal 2018. It was not.... In the memory of winemakers, it takes several decades to find such a rainy start to the year. The cumulative rainfall reached 833 mm in the first 10 months of 2018 compared to 206 mm in 2017, an exceptionally dry year. Fortunately, September was spared by the equinox rains (limited to 5 mm), which allowed the winemakers to harvest in complete serenity, until late in the latter season.
Made from grapes with excellent health, the Châteauneuf-du-Pape red and white of the 2018 vintage are characterized by optimal maturities and very nice lengths in the mouth.
A RAINY YEAR, THEN HOT, THEN DRY…
With 520 mm of precipitation during the vegetative period (identical to 2013) and a sum of 10°C base temperatures reaching 2252 over the period from 1 March to 30 September (against 2180 in 2017 and 2055 in 2016), 2018 will have experienced one of the strongest downy mildew pressures in recent years. Suffice to say that spring has not been an easy time for winegrowers, who have had to be vigilant and anticipatory not to be won over by this
“pseudo-fungus” which may occasionally cause significant crop losses.
Fortunately, the high summer temperatures (11 days with temperatures above 35°C in August) and the temperate nights of September made it possible to obtain grapes of excellent quality.