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CDP Grand Pin, Chapelle Saint Theodoric 2015

Tasting Notes

These Grenache vines in the Rayas lieu-dit are only 35 years old, but the 2015 Chateauneuf du Pape Le Grand Pin was singing in full voice when I tried a prebottling sample. Lovely floral and garrigue notes accent the ripest cherries on the nose, while the palate is remarkably airy and delicate with a nearly endless, silky finish.

96/98
Joe Czerwinski, RobertParker.com, October 2017

I loved the 2015 Châteauneuf-du-Pape Le Grand Pin and this flagship cuvée (100% Grenache) comes all from the northern part of the Pignan lieu-dit and spent 24 months in demi-muids. It offers a crazily perfumed bouquet of strawberries, pine resin, white pepper and green herbs that continues to change in the glass. This gives way to a full-bodied, seamless 2015 that has impeccable balance, terrific mid-palate depth, and polished tannin. If I had to pick one wine that comes closest in style to Rayas, this would be it.

94
Jeb Dunnuck, JebDunnuck.com, October 2017

The 2015 le Grand Pin bottling from Chapelle St. Theodoric is a point lower in octane than the excellent 2016 version, coming in at an even fourteen percent and offering up even more aromatic complexity than the younger vintage, as there are a wide array of beautiful spice and botanical shadings that are unlocked at fourteen percent, but subsumed in the flashier fruit tones of the 2016. Scents of raspberries, blood orange, bonfire, cloves, fresh thyme and rosemary, gorgeous, almost stony soil tones (even though this terroir is all sand!), spit-roasted meats and other savory elements in the upper register. On the palate the wine is full-bodied, deep and very transparent in personality, with fine depth at the core, fine-grained tannins and a long, tangy and very complex finish. This does not have the sheer volume of fruit at the core of most Châteauneufs today and I am sure that some fanciers of the appellation would call this wine “light”, but that is emphatically not the case, the wine is just properly buttoned up today behind its fine structural chassis and needs bottle age to start to blossom. Once it opens, it is going to be flat out brilliant!

94
John Gilman, View From the Cellar (83), September 2019
Please note that these tasting notes/scores are not intended to be exhaustive and in some cases they may not be the most recently published figures. However, we always do our best to add latest scores and reviews when these come to our attention. We advise customers who wish to purchase wines based simply on critical reviews to carry out further research into the latest reports.