Châteauneuf-du-Pape
(Blend)

Wine Style:
Often big, rich, full-bodied with spicy and raspberries flavors with capability for 5 to 20 bottle aging.

Flavors:

Origin:
Rhone Valley in France

Found:
California, Australia, and France

The vast majority of wines from the Southern Rhône are blends. There are 5 main black varieties, although others are used and the most famous wine of the region, Châteauneuf du Pape, can be made from as many as 13 different varieties.

Grenache is the most important grape in the southern Rhône - it contributes alcohol, warmth and gentle juicy fruit and is an ideal base wine in the blend. Plantings of Syrah in the southern Rhône have risen dramatically in the last decade and it is an increasingly important component in blends. It rarely attains the heights that it does in the North but adds colour, backbone, tannins and soft ripe fruit to the blend.

The much-maligned Carignan has been on the retreat recently but is still included in many blends - the best old vines can add color, body and spicy fruits. Cinsault is also backtracking but, if yields are restricted, can produce moderately well-colored wines adding pleasant-light fruit to red and rosé blends.

Finally, Mourvèdre, a grape from Bandol on the Mediterranean coast which in a recent tasting, the owner and winemaker of Chateau Beaucastel said which plays an important part in Beaucastel blend, has become an increasingly significant component of Southern Rhône blends - it often struggles to ripen fully but can add acidity, ripe spicy berry fruits and hints of tobacco to blends.

Further Reading:
Wikipedia
CDP UK
Epicurious
Wine.com
International Herald Tribune
Vins Rhone
French Food
Wine Spectator