Domaine du Vieux Télégraphe

One cannot think of Châteauneuf-du-Pape, the most celebrated cru of the Southern Rhone, without thinking of Domaine du Vieux Télégraphe. Domaine du Vieux Télégraphe has been run by the Brunier family for five generations - since 1891. The 45-hectare estate's vineyards, 60 years old on average, are planted on the celebrated Plateau of La Crau, a site renowned for grape-growing in Châteauneuf-du-Pape. This terroir imparts to wines a highly distinctive minerality as if filtered through the thick layer of large pebbles left behind when the Alpine glaciers melted long before the Rhône Valley formed. Vieux Télégraphe's blend is typical, with Grenache accounting for around two-thirds, the rest being made up of Syrah and Mourvèdre in roughly equal proportions, and a tiny bit of Cinsault. The wines of Vieux Télégraphe evoke the concept of terroir in its purest form: they reflect their dramatic climate, the rough terrain that defines the soil, their full sun exposure at a higher altitude, the typicity of the varietals with an emphasis on Grenache, and of course, the influence of their caretakers, the Brunier family.