Clos Des Papes Le Petit Vin d’Avril Rouge

The Le Petit Vin d’Avril (two-thirds from the 2005 vintage and one-third from 2004) is juicy, with loads of crunchy cherries and new saddle leather notes with some pepper, flowers, and spice. It’s a vin gourmande, as the French would say, and best drunk in its first several years of life.

This exquisitely run estate continues to turn out wines of great fragrance, richness as well as flavor authority and integrity. The yields are always among the lowest in the appellation. While they have 87 acres and can produce as much as 8,000 cases of Chateauneuf du Pape, the yields in 2003 were 23 hectoliters per hectare, in 2004, 22 hectoliters per hectare, and in 2005, 21 hectoliters per hectare. Their best value, and it’s one heck of a bistro wine, is the non-vintage concoction of Grenache, Syrah, Merlot, and Carignan actually cropped at an amazingly low 32 hectoliters per hectare.

• Producer Clos Des Papes
• Country Hierarchy Southern Rhône, France
• Grape/Blend 
• Alcohol Content