Rare vertical tasting: Domaine les Cailloux’s Cuvée Centenaire 1989-2016

Châteauneuf-du-Pape has a winemaking history going back at least 1,000 years, but there’s one vintage that marks a turning point in its recent evolution: 1989. It was the year that four major estates all decided that instead of making one red Châteauneuf bottling, they would make two; a classic blend and a cuvée spéciale to spotlight their very best parcels.

At the time it was customary to make just a single blend each year, so it marks a significant break with tradition, and this practice has since been widely adopted. Domaine les Cailloux ‘Cuvée Centenaire’ was one of these four pioneers, and I was recently invited to a vertical tasting at the estate.

Scroll down for Matt Walls’ Cuvée Centenaire vertical tasting notes and scores

The Brunel family’s winemaking roots date back to 1750, when an ancestor bought a vineyard from the bishop of Avignon. It’s been developed and tended to ever since by successive generations.

‘Like many peasant families,’ says current owner Fabrice Brunel, ‘people stayed with their vines.’ It wasn’t until 1954, however, that his grandfather Lucien Brunel started bottling, under the domaine name ‘Les Cailloux’.

Fabrice joined the company in 2013 and is now in charge of running the business. His father André Brunel, who started making the wine in 1972, is still involved in production. André was one of the first winemakers in Châteauneuf to grow cover crops between the rows in an era when most of his neighbours relied heavily on herbicides. He also exchanged some parcels of vines, swapping some of his stony ones (a cailloux is a pebble) for some sandier vineyards in a quest for greater finesse.

Two-thirds of their Châteauneuf vineyards are still on stony galets roulés soils; today they have 21ha split into a dozen different parcels around the appellation. They also own 40ha of AOC Côtes-du-Rhône vineyards nearby, and a further 40ha of IGP.

Their classic red and white Châteauneuf cuvées are both reliable, drinkable expressions; but ‘Cuvée Centenaire’, produced only in good vintages, can be very special indeed.

Cuvée Centenaire

The heart of the blend is a 1.5ha plot of Grenache planted in 1889 in lieu-dit Farguerol in the north of the appellation by Fabrice’s great-grandfather just after phylloxera. It’s a gently sloping, very windy vineyard of galets roulés over blue clay, so ‘the wines don’t really suffer there for lack of water,’ says Fabrice, ‘just a bit, just enough to make a great wine.’

To this, they add the year’s best barrel of old-vine Syrah (typically a second- or third-use barrique). It’s to add tannin and colour to the blend, as the juice from their 1889 Grenache is as pale as Pinot Noir.

Grapes for Centenaire are destemmed – except in 2015 because their destemmer broke down the day before harvest! It turned out to be fortuitous, as it has resulted in one of their best vintages. Fermentation takes place in large concrete vats, taking four to five weeks, then the wine is aged in concrete and stainless steel for 18 months, before being bottled unfiltered.

Back vintages at the domaine are scarce, so vertical tastings are rare. With their stocks of the excellent 1990 and 2001 vintages exhausted, this was as close to a full vertical as possible.

The 1989 is incredible; multifaceted, powerful but fleet of foot. It’s still the greatest vintage of this cuvée made to date. Other contenders were the full-throttle 1998, the accidental whole-bunch 2015, and the refined 2006 – not commonly considered a great vintage, but one that I often enjoy, and a vintage of Centenaire that displays effortless balance and finesse.

None of the vintages we tasted were over the hill, with only the 2000 and 2003 showing signs of tiring. The 1989 is holding up remarkably well, fully mature, but there’s at least another decade in the tank.

Not all vintages will last as long; surprisingly for such a strong year, the 2010 we tasted had evolved quickly.

But generally speaking, ‘Cuvée Centenaire’ is a Châteauneuf that faithfully reflects the character of its vintage, whose ancient Grenache vineyard produces highly complex and ageworthy wines.

Since 1989, some of the most ambitious Châteauneufs have veered into exaggeration and evolved rapidly. But, despite a minor wobble in quality in the early 2000s, Centenaire is a cuvée spéciale that has proved its worth.

See Matt Walls’ Cuvée Centenaire vertical tasting notes and scores

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