Saint-Galet Châteauneuf-du-pape – Sustainable
Back in the day, and that day was 20 years ago, Châteauneuf-du-Papes were priced in the $30 range, with some premium bottlings going into the $60s. Today, the least expensive CdP we’ve sold in the past ten years goes for $38.99, and many of our offerings are in the $70-100 range – and up.
Budget-minded folks who love the fruit-forward, bold style of CdP have generally moved on – to the neighboring regions of Gigondas, Vacqueyras, Lirac, and Cairanne. Not that those wines aren’t great – they are – but they aren’t Chateauneuf, the first AOC established in France.
Enter Saint-Galet, a private project blended by and bottled for a favorite importer, who explains that “restaurant shutdowns in France, combined with those short-lived “over 14%” wine tariffs, meant a once-in-a-lifetime and narrow window of buying opportunity and BUY we did. Our two men in Europe blended this beauty of a Chateauneuf from the ground up with Eric Bonnet of Domaine La Bastide Saint Dominique fame.”
Eric Bonnet: “My family has been making wine for a number of years now. My great-grandfather started it. He did not bottle the wine he made under his own label but sold it by the barrel to a negociant. My father started to bottle wine in 1980.”
The wine is made and vinified at La Bastide Saint Dominique from a sustainably farmed estate and with purchased fruit, vinified in stainless and aged in concrete and some foudre.
This wine is a classically composed CdP blend of 80% Grenache 15% Mourvèdre and 5% Syrah, producing a sappy, opulent, mouth-filling wine, that’s a perfect complement to BBQ fare, cheeses, or just hanging around the patio with friends.
Saint-Galet is every Chateauneuf lover’s dream: sappy, dark, gutsy fruit, that garrigue-y smell of the hot Mistral blowing through the vineyards, and a nice long finish that goes on and on!
A complex nose of plums, blueberries and prunes is framed by rocky minerality and complementary mandarin zest, black tea, and white pepper. Prunes and blueberries echo on the plush palate backed by black plum skin framed by minerality. Fine-grained tannins on the back palate lead to a finish of river rock minerality that freshens the long finish.