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Paul S -> RE: Truly Historic Wines (10/25/2009 6:03:57 PM)
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Conventional wisdom is that CdP has better terroir than the other villages in the area (e.g. Sablet, Gigondas, Vacqueyras etc). It is true from my experience that CdP wines are usually (as in most of the time, but not always) better than those of the other villages when in the hands of capable makers. The wines are finer boned, less rustic and seem to age far more elegantly.
Being in the Southern Rhone, you cannot really tell great terroir differences from a casual survey of the land. You do get more galet (large round river stone) vineyards in general in CdP than other villages, but there are also some really great CdP wines being made from vineyards that share the same sandy soil as the other villages - Vieux Telegraphe's La Crau and most of Domaine Pegau's holdings are a fine example.
My guesses? Galets aside, there is probably a higher clay content in general in some other villages I think, leading to slightly stodgier wines, but this is certainly not true for many vineyards. That probabl;y contributes, but I think another probably greater factor is that CdP itself a quite a large appelation with many different sub-climates and soil types, but the one thing in general for most of the vineyards is that they have a favourable exposition to the all important Mistral (north wind) that cools the grapes and keeps the place dry. Not all vineyards are so favourably sited in some of the other villages.
Otherwise, you might also consider that CdP has historically been far more important because the 6 popes who were based in Avignon had their summer retreat in the town (probably because of the cooling mistral), and therefore drank more wines from there than the surroundings - thus leading to their popularity and fame. Once the monks who tended the vines upped and left, the wines of the area remained famous. Higher prices, higher visibility leading to vignerons being able to treat their vineyards better and winemakers being able to invest more in their wines - another possible factor?
One last factor to consider is the Parker effect in recent years. He loves CdP, markets them like crazy (intentionally or not) through tons of high scores, leading to lots more money flowing in to the top domaines there, leading to greater ability to invest in good winemaking perhaps?
These are just my random thoughts - would welcome any corrections, add-ons or other comments. Very interesting question this.
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