Robert Parker 96+ Points: “The 2019 Chateauneuf du Pape La Crau is a hugely successful vintage, marked by scents of sun-warmed stones, garrigue, black cherries and black olives. Full-bodied, rich and velvety, it finishes with tremendous length and softly dusty tannins, which should help ensure a long, positive evolution.
I arrived at VT during the 2021 harvest; they hadn’t picked the previous two days, waiting for the vineyards to dry out a bit after the second of two rain events. “You can’t have two storms like this without having some effect on structure and concentration,” said Daniel Brunier. “Here, at least, we had no [spring] frost, but we lost 80% in the Ventoux.”
Although I tasted those wines during this visit, the Famille Brunier wines from other appellations will be covered in the next installment of Southern Rhône coverage. Piedlong is still listed here, while Clos la Roquete has its own listing, basically since that’s the way they’ve long been listed in our database. Going forward, those, too, will be listed under the Famille Brunier umbrella.“