Walls: Domaine de la Janasse, Vieilles Vignes 2011-2000 vertical

Some Châteauneufs are more reliable than others. When I visit the region to taste the new vintage every year, Domaine de la Janasse’s cuvée Vieilles Vignes regularly features among the best.

It’s a particularly dense and concentrated wine when young, and it always strikes me that, even for Châteauneuf, it’s a wine that needs extended ageing to show its best.

I was keen to acquire a more complete understanding of how this cuvée develops, so I visited brother-and-sister team Isabelle and Christophe Sabon at the estate earlier this year to find out.

Between 10 and 20 years of age is typically a sweet spot for opening Châteauneuf-du-Pape, so we opened a full vertical of Vieilles Vignes from 2011 back to 2000 to assess how it ages.

Scroll down to see tasting notes and scores for 11 vintages of Domaine de la Janasse’s Vieilles Vignes

The estate

The name is well known to lovers of Châteauneuf, but Domaine de la Janasse isn’t one of the more venerable estates – far from it. The winery was established by Christophe and Isabelle’s father Aimé Sabon in 1973. Christophe took over the estate in 1991, and he was joined by Isabelle in 2001. The family vineyards, however, are much older.

Aimé started out with 15ha that he took over from his father, and the family now have 90ha of vines in and around the appellation. To add to this, they bought the nearby estate Clos St Antonin in 2014, adding a further 20ha of vines.

Domaine de la Janasse makes three red Châteauneuf cuvées spéciales: Vieilles Vignes, Chaupin (100% Grenache on sand) and XXL (only made in 2007, 2016 and 2019). We focused solely on the Vieilles Vignes during our tasting.

Old vines, new cuvée

When Christophe arrived back at the estate after studying winemaking, he tasted the 1989 and 1990s that were still maturing, plot by plot, in the cellar. He said there were a few tanks that were simply too good to blend – and that’s how the cuvée Vieilles Vignes came about.

Today it’s a union of four different parcels. The body of the blend comes from the galets roulés soils of La Crau Ouest. The other three parcels are more or less sandy: Les Saummades in the east of the appellation, and in the far northeast La Barnouine and La Jannasse (from which the estate takes its name).

This amounts to around 6ha, and the vines have an average age of 80 to 90 years. Some of the parcels are co-planted, so figures are imprecise, but the planting is around 70% Grenache, 20% Mourvèdre, 5% Syrah, and the rest made up of Counoise, Clairette Rose and Cinsault.

Promising varieties

‘We’re one of the least impacted regions by the warming climate,’ says Christophe, and he isn’t as concerned by this threat as some of his neighbours. He’s reassured by the prevalence of water sources in the Vaucluse, and says ‘we have the good fortune of having lots of grape varieties.’

He’s planting more Mourvèdre, and is a particular fan of Muscardin. ‘It’s very spicy, has low alcohol, and has little berries that don’t suffer from rot,’ he says. He also likes Clairette Rose, but is less of a fan of Counoise. ‘It’s good, but it’s not my favourite,’ as he finds the alcohol levels can get out of hand. But for him, ‘Grenache is still the right variety for Châteauneuf.’

Winemaking adjustments

The two main changes to the cuvée came in 2007 and 2010. The 2007 Vieilles Vignes is a goliath of a wine, one that makes a huge impression, but doesn’t have the easiest balance – along with all the other elements, the alcohol is very high.

‘It was the year when I said to myself, “I have to rein it in!”,’ says Christophe. Since then, he hasn’t pushed the ripeness quite so far, and has pulled back on the extraction.

In 2010, he started including some stalks in the ferments – 20% to 50%, depending on the vintage. ‘We realised in certain years that stems can reduce alcohol, and add a tension that’s interesting for ageing.’ But he’s ambivalent, since he thinks there’s a danger they can bring a hardness to the texture and overbearing stemmy aromas.

Given the quality of his 2010, the best wine of the vertical, I’d say they’ve proved their worth.

The tasting

Working through the series of ten vintages (they didn’t make a 2002), it’s clear that this is a wine that ages extremely well, and one that needs a long period in bottle to show its best.

The 2011, 2010 and 2009 still haven’t reached their ideal drinking window.

A typical vintage of Vieilles Vignes from this era has a lifespan of 25 to 35 years – longer in a great one – and starts to show well at around 15 years. This isn’t a wine to drink young.

In certain vintages, the acidity doesn’t always feel perfectly integrated but this tended to be in younger wines such as the 2011. The run of vintages from 2005 to 2010, however, were consistently impressive, and only the 2004 was disappointing.

Christophe says that of all his cuvées, Vieilles Vignes is his most classically Châteauneuf, and in a wider regional context it’s a dependably typical expression that can offer all the muscle, presence and complexity you’d want to find in a mature bottle. All you have to do is wait.

See Matt Walls’ tasting notes and scores for 11 vintages of Domaine de la Janasse’s Vieilles Vignes

Wines are listed in vintage order, youngest to oldest

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