Coudoulet de Beaucastel, 2007

One of the most admired wines in Châteauneuf-du-Pape is Château Beaucastel.  I have one bottle in my cellar, but at around $100 a bottle (a present from my beloved wife!), it is quite expensive.  Coudoulet de Beaucastel is often known as a baby Beaucastel, and at only $32, it is a good way to get some insight into the kind of wine Beaucastel makes.  2007 was also an exceptional year in the southern Rhône, and this made it seem like a pretty good idea to buy a bottle.

Although Beaucastel is classified as a Châteauneuf-du-Pape, the Coudoulet is grown on 30 hectares of land outside the area to the east just on the other side of the A7 autoroute. For this reason, Coudoulet is classified as a Côtes du Rhône, which is usually cheap, cheerful, often delicious, and consumed soon after bottling.  But Coudoulet is the kind of wine that is appealing to the serious wine lover — more like a Châteauneuf-du-Pape than a typical Côtes du Rhône.

The grape varieties that go into this wine include Grenache (30%), Mourvedre (30%), Syrah (20%), and Cinsault (20%).  The high proportion of Mourvedre makes the wine more tannic and provides aromas of leather and tobacco that are characteristic in Châteauneuf-du-Pape.  Mourvedre also makes the wine resistant to oxidization giving it aging potential.  Each varietal is vinified separately and reunited and matured in large wooden barrels.  Before bottling, the wine is fined with egg whites.

The philosophy of Beaucastel is to make wine as organically as possible minimizing the use of chemicals and pesticides.  The following extract is copied from their website.

We try to place the vine in its environment, that is to say in its relationship to the earth, to animal life and the stars, by which it is influenced

If a wild strawberry has more flavour than one grown in a hothouse it is because the former, even if smaller and less attractive visually, has grown in a natural environment. It has quintessential aromas, whilst the second, produced in a man-made environment, has its flavours diluted to favour its appearance.

The same goes for grapes. To make a wine of character, grapes must have flavours. All our decisions follow this logic of harvesting healthy, balanced grapes, intrinsically capable of producing a wine of great quality.

This is why, for example, we do not use chemical fertilisers, preferring a compost made on the property from a mixture of sheep’s manure and the previous year’s grape pressings (marc) which, once mixed into the soil, maintains its humus content and microbiological equilibrium.

Preventive treatments are reduced to a minimum; the natural nutrients in the soil improving the physiology of the plant and its natural resistance to disease. These conditions, which are desirable and which we try to obtain, enable us to avoid an escalation in chemical treatments. These are intended to destroy various parasites, but in fact produce a biological imbalance, engendering other parasites.

Through these organic methods, many natural diseases have been eradicated in the vineyard and we have now a strong population of birds, cicadas and lady-birds at Beaucastel.

Although we drank this wine young, it was simply delicious and you could identify the role of each of the varietals.  Mourvedre gave the whole wine a sense of structure and balance.  The wine has a big fruit feel with overtones of spicy pepper that probably comes off the Grenache.  The Syrah and Cinsault provide deep red berry fruit, more tannin, and generally add to the complexity of this wine.

Robert Parker liked this wine very much indeed  and gave it a score of 92.  I second that very high recommendation, but I am about as inclined to give numeric scores to wine as I might to my friends!