2012 Bastide St Dominique - Chateauneuf du Pape Les Hesperides
Market price
Buying options
Tasting notes
Dark purple. Heady bouquet of ripe black and blue fruits, licorice and fruitcake, with intense woodsmoke and floral pastille nuances gaining strength with air. Lush, broad and creamy, with sweet, liqueur-like blueberry and boysenberry flavors displaying excellent depth and focus. Emphatically rich and weighty wine, with velvety tannins framing the hefty fruit on the long, clinging finish. Quite impressive but I imagine that those who gravitate toward graceful wines might find this wine a bit much.
Critic scores
Average Score
Jancis Robinson MW
Josh Raynolds
More reviews and scores
The 2012 Châteauneuf du Pape Les Hespérides is an even split of Mourvedre and Grenache that doesn’t pull any punches in its floral, plum, blackberry, meaty, iron and crushed-rock-scented bouquet. Medium to full-bodied, plump and layered, with fabulous mid-palate depth and ripe tannin, it's approachable today thanks to a wealth of fruit, but it should have over a decade of longevity as well.
Dark ruby. Blackberry and cherry-vanilla on the deeply perfumed nose and in the mouth. Smooth and open-knit, with intense black and blue fruit flavors and a hint of candied licorice. Supple tannins give shape to a persistent finish that features sweet vanilla and bitter chocolate.
Vineyard soil: galets, sand, clay-limestone. Lieu-dit: Bédines. 50% Grenache, 50% Mourvèdre, 18 months in cuve. Very dark crimson. Very meaty and glamorous. All rich black fruit and smooth texture. I'm sure there is a lot of alcohol here but it is pretty well disguised. A wine on which all stops have been pulled out. Hint of meat extract. (JR)