Châteauneuf-du-Pape "Fiancée"

Barroche
France
Rhône
2022

The “Fiancée” is only bottled in exceptional years and the last release was the 2019 vintage. The blend is 50% Grenache from the 100-year-old Terres Blanches plot, which lends finesse and silkiness to the wine, and 50% Syrah from the Cabrieres plot, which contributes fruit, power, colour, and cocoa aromas. Rigorous bud pruning is done to keep yields low, as well as green harvesting and leaf thinning. The picking is entirely by hand, with sorting in the vineyard and again in the cellar. Underripe stems are removed, and the juice stayes on the skins for four weeks; aged in 600L barrels that are at least three years old. The final cuvée is aged 20 months before it is bottled, unfiltered.

93 points
"A blend of equal parts Grenache and Syrah from the Cabrières and Terres Blanches lieux-dits that was raised in foudre, the 2022 Châteauneuf Du Pape Fiancée has a beautiful nose of juicy black cherries, blackberries, peppery herbs, leather, and baking spices. It has a slightly floral, exotic edge in its aromatics, and it hits the palate with medium to full-bodied richness as well as good concentration, fine tannins, nicely integrated acidity, and a great finish. It's a beautifully balanced, complete, impressive wine that will benefit from 2-4 years of bottle age and shine over the following decade. There are a tiny 250 cases produced."
Jeb Dunnuck,
JebDunnuck.com
October 2024
92+ points
"2022 Châteauneuf du Pape “Fiancée”- Domaine la Barroche The 2022 Châteauneuf du Pape “Fiancée” bottling from Domaine la Barroche is made from a fifty-fifty blend of one hundred year-old grenache vines and younger syrah vines. The wine includes some whole clusters and is raised in three year-old, six hundred liter demi-muids for twenty months prior to being bottled unfiltered. The Barrot family only produces this cuvée in outstanding vintages. The 2022 Fiancée tips the scales at fifteen percent octane and offers up a deep, pure and nicely black fruity bouquet of cassis, black raspberries, smoked meats, pepper, coffee bean, garrigue, stony soil tones, woodsmoke and a touch of cedar. On the palate the wine is full-bodied, focused and shows off a rock solid core of old vine fruit, with fine soil signature and grip, firm, chewy tannins, good balance and just a wisp of backend heat on the long, complex and youthful finish. This carries its alcohol quite well, but it is going to need plenty of cellaring to soften up its undercarriage of tannin."
John Gilman,
VFTC
#119

SKU/Code: 
DB4935-22
Product Line: 
National Portfolio
Wine
Red
Varietal: 
Grenache
Farming Type: 
Organic