Châteauneuf-du-Pape: The Pope’s Wine and France’s First AOC

Châteauneuf-du-Pape is the flagship of the Southern Rhône. It was the Pope’s wine in the 14th century, and France’s first legally protected appellation in the 20th.

Its name means “the Pope’s new castle,” and both halves of that name carry the story: a medieval papal court that made the wine famous, and a modern set of rules that made it the template for how France protects wine.¹ It is the warm, generous counterpart to the Northern Rhône.

The Pope’s wine

In the early 14th century the papacy moved from Rome to Avignon, a few miles south of the village. Pope John XXII built a summer residence here between about 1317 and 1332 and encouraged the planting of vines.¹ The local wine became known as vin du Pape, the Pope’s wine, and that papal endorsement gave it a fame that outlived the Avignon court itself.

Stones and the blend

Walk the vineyards and the first thing you notice is the ground: many are carpeted in galets roulés, large rounded stones that soak up the day’s heat and release it to the vines at night.² The appellation is unusual in another way too. It permits 13 traditional grape varieties, red and white (18 under current rules if color variants are counted separately), and most wines are blends led by Grenache, filled out with Syrah, Mourvèdre, Cinsault and others.² The result is warm, spicy and full-bodied, the opposite of the single-grape purity of the north.

France’s first appellation

Châteauneuf-du-Pape’s second claim to fame is legal. In the 1920s, the local grower Baron Le Roy of Château Fortia led an effort to define the wine by rules: which land qualified, which grapes were allowed, how the vines were grown.³ His system, first drawn up in 1923, became the model for France’s appellation d’origine contrôlée, and in 1936 Châteauneuf-du-Pape became one of the first AOCs in the country. The framework that now governs French wine started here.³

Read more

• The Northern Rhône: the home of Syrah
• Grenache, the backbone of the blend
• Gigondas, Châteauneuf’s neighbor
• The Châteauneuf-du-Pape castle

References

1. Name (“the Pope’s new castle”), the Avignon papacy and Pope John XXII’s residence, and the wine as vin du Pape: The Oxford Companion to Wine, 4th ed., “Châteauneuf-du-Pape”; Encyclopædia Britannica, “Avignon papacy”; Fédération des Producteurs (AOC Châteauneuf-du-Pape), official history. ↩
2. Galets roulés, the 13 traditional grape varieties (18 under the current INAO rules with colour variants) and Grenache-led blends: The Oxford Companion to Wine; Decanter, “Châteauneuf-du-Pape”; INAO cahier des charges. ↩
3. Baron Le Roy of Château Fortia, the 1923 rules as the prototype for the AOC system, and Châteauneuf-du-Pape among France’s first AOCs (1936): The Oxford Companion to Wine, “appellation contrôlée” and “Le Roy”; INAO; Encyclopædia Britannica. ↩

Want to read more? Try these books

The Oxford Companion to Wine Jancis Robinson (ed.)

The Story of Wine Hugh Johnson

Ancient Wine Patrick E. McGovern

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