Châteauneuf-du-Pape & Beyond

Who is afraid of the biggest, baddest of all French wines? In this class, we explore the Southern Rhone in all its glory, focusing on the glorious wines of Châteauneuf-du-Pape.

This is the Southern Rhone Valley, a wine region that went from rags to riches back in the ’80s when an American wine critic Robert Parker started singing their praises. It’s a region that continues to evolve—some of the best bio-dynamic winemakers and some of the most famous practice their craft here.

TIME Magazine described Robert Parker Jr. as, “the man with the paragon palate… for countless wine lovers, Robert Parker’s tasstes are infallible.” Wine lovers across the globe look to his ratings to influence their wine cellar selections. For Parker the choice is simple, the bottle he reaches for the most comes from Châteauneuf-du-Pape. What is behind Parker’s passionate crush? He explains, “The greatest appeal of Châteauneuf-du-Pape, beyond its food-friendly qualities, expansiveness, generosity of flavors and sumptuous texture, is the almost addictive attraction of its combined intellectual and hedonistic elements.”