Château de Beaucastel • Châteauneuf-du-Pâpe 2021

Hudin.com

Jeff Leve, The Wine Cellar Insider

Meaty, spicy, flowers, thyme, and peppery, dark red berries pop in the nose. On the palate, the wine really shines, due to its larger than usual percentage of Mourvedre in the blend. Concentrated, rich, lush, deep and intense, you find a minty, peppery edging to the red berries on the mid-palate and in the long, salty finish. The wine blends 35% Mourvedre, 30% Grenache, 10% Syrah, 10% Counoise, and various other AOC allowable red wine grape varietals along with 10% white wine grape varietals. Drink from 2024-2040.

Bacchus Magazine

Robert Parker Wine Advocate

The 2021 Chateauneuf du Pape ratchets up the intensity from the Coudelet, adding more pronounced Mourvèdre-derived notes of truffle and tree bark to go with ripe black cherries and plums, crushed stone and hints of dark chocolate. Full-bodied in the mouth, with ample concentration and richness, this gently tannic wine finishes long and velvety, with echoes of licorice and dark fruit. It's a standout from a difficult vintage.

On my last two visits to this large, historic property, I've been greeted by Cesar Perrin, who now manages all of the family's vineyards and supervises the winemaking at Château de Beaucastel. Other family members continue to be involved in the myriad wine-related business decisions, including participating in the annual blending process.

The big news is that the new, state-of-the-art winery facility is inching closer to completion. Built largely of rammed earth from the site, and designed to have a big portion of the cooling load handled by ambient winds evaporating stored rainwater, it will set new standards in sustainability (assuming it all works the way it is supposed to).

In the vineyards, experiments with various cover crop regimes rolled as mulch are taking place with a view toward slowing sugar accumulation in the grapes and reining in potential alcohol levels. The results are intriguing, with the 2021 samples I tried from barrel coming in 0.5% to 0.7% lower in finished alcohol and with slightly lower pHs compared to plots farmed more traditionally, yet they wines still exhibit dark fruit and supple tannins.

James Suckling

Still a little closed, so the fruit is a bit reserved, but there are already meaty, lavender and rosemary aromas. Well-structured and crisp, the tannins building steadily as it flows over the palate. The concentrated and ripe red fruit is very deftly wrapped around the core. Long, spicy, and licorice finish. Drink from release. From organically grown grapes.

Jeb Dunnuck

ncluding more Mourvèdre than usual (40%), the 2021 Châteauneuf Du Pape sports a deep ruby/purple hue as well as an utterly classic Beaucastel nose of ripe red and blue fruits, spice, game, truffly earth, and ground pepper. Reminding me of the 2012, it's medium to full-bodied, has a layered, concentrated md-palate, sweet tannins, and a great finish.
One of the stalwarts of the appellation, Château de Beaucastel continues to produce an incredible array of wines from their estate in the northwestern edge of the appellation. Looking at the vintages reviewed here, the 2022s are ripe, sexy wines that bring to mind 2019 or even 2009. The whites are absolutely brilliant, and while only tasted from barrel, the 2022s will certainly be incredible wines. The 2021s also showed well and possess more depth and density than most in the vintage. In general, Mourvèdre seemed more challenging in 2021, but you certainly wouldn’t have that impression after tasting at Beaucastel. The closest comparison here for the 2021s would be the 2008s, which are balanced, elegant wines that are still drinking beautifully today. The 2021s should be a step up in quality, although I suspect they will evolve along a similar trajectory. Lastly, the estate is wrapping up a massive renovation of the cellar that was built with sustainability front and center and will be using an evaporative cooling mechanism with stored rainwater.