The Chateauneuf-du-Pape vineyards are not on a hillside, but on a high, rolling, incredibly rocky plain, so covered with pebbles and small boulders that it seems unbelievable that anything, let alone a vine, can grow there and bear fruit. The strictly delimited zone of production is about four miles by six, though much of its area is not planted to vines, and the production per acre, as might be expected, is low, the legal maximum being less than 2 ½ tons of grapes, or about 350 gallons, per acre.
Unlike almost all other great French wines, Chateauneuf-du-Pape is not made from a single grape variety or from two, but from thirteen, generally grown and picked together, and each one, according to tradition, contributing its special excellence to the finished product. Some of these are white and some red; they include the Syrah of Hermitage and Cote Rotie, the Roussanne of white Hermitage, the Grenache, of which we shall have more to say later, the Clairette, which is white, the Mourvedre, Picpoul, Terret Noir, Counoise, Muscardin, Vaccarese, Picardan, Cinsaut, and Bourboulenc.
A little white wine, very full-bodied but good, is made from the white varieties alone, principally from the Roussanne.
Like the other Rhone vineyards, Chateauneuf-du-Pape is divided into quartiers, but there are 132 of these, and most of them we can afford to leave in the obscurity they deserve. The best is supposed to be Cabrieres, but this is not a name you are likely to see on a wine label. What you may see, and will if you look for it, is the name of one of the five chateaux of the Chateauneuf-du-Pape district which practice chateau-bottling, or the name of one of the major properties. I am listing the most im portant of these, together with the quartier in which each one lies:
Chateau Fortia—La Fortiasse
Chateau des Fines Roches—La Grenade
Chateau de la Nerthe—La Nerthe
Chateau de Vaudieu—Vaudieu
Chateau Rayas—Le Rayas and Pignan
Cabrieres-les-Silex—Cabrieres
Mont-Redon—Mont Redon
Tacussel—Bois Senescau
St. Andre—Les Pielons
Farguerol—Farguerol
Tavel
Southernmost of the Cotes-du-Rhone vineyards, Tavel belongs to R.N. 7 by courtesy rather than by geography. The village is ten miles or so west of Avignon, on the “wrong” bank of the Rhone, and with nothing, not even a decent inn, to recommend it to the tourist. But countless bottles of Taval, at the Hotel de I'Europe and Chez Hiely, at the Dominion and the Crillon and Chez Lance, in Avignon, have speeded travelers along R. N. 7 on their way, toward Aix and Brignoles and the Riviera. Pink Tavel, served chilled with a friture of crisp fresh little fish, or with a brandade de morue, under the first warm sun of a January hegira, is a memorable experience, and as much a part of R.N. 7 as the plane trees which line the road for mile after pleasant mile.
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