Coudoulet de Beaucastel Rouge, Côtes du Rhône

This wine of the week is classified as a humble Côtes du Rhône, an appellation producing around one million hectolitres of wine every year, most of which are not worth writing about. But Coudoulet de Beaucastel is no ordinary Côtes du Rhône.

It is made by Château de Beaucastel, one of the most famous names of Châteauneuf-du-Pape. Vines have likely been grown on these soils since the mid 16th century, when posterity records a nobleman by the name of Beaucastel building a property there. Its modern era begins in 1909, when the estate was purchased by the father-in-law of Pierre Perrin, who subsequently inherited it and whose descendants still run it today as part of a winemaking dynasty that also includes Tablas Creek in California.

Anyway, 109 years later I bought a six-pack of Coudoulet de Beaucastel 2016 as my first-ever en primeur purchase. It had been a favourite of mine since first encountering it during my formative wine-trade years at Majestic Wine, the UK wine warehouse chain. I had tasted the 2016 as part of my Rhône report for this site, and it was one of my favourite wines of the vintage, especially considering the price.

Since purchase, the bottles had been resting in a friend's London cellar until I liberated one for Christmas drinking in another Châteauneuf: Newcastle-upon-Tyne, in the north of England, and my wife's appellation d'origine.

The fact that Coudoulet de Beaucastel is sold en primeur tells you something about its status: firstly that it has ageability; secondly that it has the potential to go up in value. After taxes, I paid £17 ($21, €20) per bottle when I bought my 2016 en primeur, whereas today you can buy the 2018 at £18 or the 2019 at $26. Hardly a big difference to what I paid seven years ago. Even so, the wine is still half the price of its big brother, Beaucastel's Châteauneuf-du-Pape, while delivering more than 50% of the pleasure. In fact, our tasting notes database awards an average score of 16.5 for red Coudoulet, while the red Châteauneuf gets 17.5.

The explanation for that quality is of course thanks to the vineyards, which also explains its Côtes du Rhone appellation. Grapes for Coudoulet come from just outside the boundary of Châteauneuf-du-Pape. In fact, several of the parcels are separated from the Châteauneuf vines merely by the Autoroute de Soleil, which describes the limit of the appellation. The Beaucastel website explains:

The Coudoulet soil has many similarities to that of Beaucastel. It is made out of Molasse seabed covered by diluvial alpine deposits. These pebbles called “Galets Roulés” play a big role: They take in the heat during the day and let it if off slowly at night which gives a good start to the vines in the spring.

The grape blend is dominated by 40% Grenache, the noble, red-fruited powerhouse of Châteauneuf-du-Pape and indeed most Côtes du Rhônes. However, there is a higher-than-average proportion of Mourvèdre (30%) as well as 20% Syrah and 10% Cinsault in the mix. That contributes dark fruits and spice flavours, plus the deepness of colour and firmness of tannin that Grenache can otherwise lack.

This additional fruit intensity and tannic structure contributes to the ageability of Coudoulet. The 2016 that I drank over Christmas had matured most of its youthful fruit into a deliciously leathery, savoury mélange. As such, it was a great demonstration of a fully mature Rhône red, although I'd guess that many wine lovers would prefer it less evolved, with fresher fruit. Whenever I've tasted it as a younger wine, it's always been both complex and ready to drink, befitting its 'baby Châteauneuf' nickname.

With multiple vintages available in the US, the UK and worldwide, it's easy to decide for yourself.

Find the 2016 vintage of this wine

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We have 43 tasting notes on various vintages of Coudoulet de Beaucastel in our tasting notes database – not just the excellent red, but its white counterpart too.

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Rhône Rhône 2016 France red wine

Richard Hemming MW