2016 Domaine la Garrigue Vacqueyras La Cantarelle 750 ml

The 2016 Domaine la Garrigue Vacqueyras La Cantarelle is a powerful red wine with absolutely no weaknesses. Radiant, dark, and unctuous, tinged with lavender, garrigue, and licorice spice, this Châteauneuf-du-Pape ringer had everyone on our judging panel not only on board from the first sip, but ready to pay twice the price. 

This wine didn’t just convince us, as it brings a rock-solid résumé. It earned 94 points from Robert Parker’s Wine Advocate as well as Jeb Dunnuck, who called the “ripe, heady, sexy beauty” “one of the top wines in the appellation.” Crafted under the watchful eye of Winemaker of the Year Philippe Cambie, the blend of Grenache and Syrah earned the same exact score as Cambie’s best-known Châteauneuf bottles: Clos St. Jean’s $52 Vieille Vignes, the $74 Vieux Donjon, and even his own La Crau-sourced Halos de Jupiter Adrastée!

All that at a price closer to Côtes du Rhône than Châteauneuf, this is the kind of screaming deal that made 2016 the Rhône’s “buy with abandon” vintage. 

Since becoming a full-fledged AOC (or AOP) in 1990, Vacqueyras has been storming Châteauneuf-du-Pape’s castle. Located just east of the Southern Rhône’s most famous appellation and to the southwest of higher-altitude Gigondas, it’s now a hotbed for some of the region’s most overachieving reds. 

Domaine la Garrigue has deep roots in the region, having been founded in 1850 by the Bernard family, which still runs it today. The three siblings Maxime, Pierre, and Martine—along with their spouses, children, and other relatives—share myriad duties at the 200-acre domaine, but they’ve gone outside the family where it counts: They retain multi-100-point enologist Philippe Cambie, dubbed “Châteauneuf-du-Pape’s driving force” by Wine Spectator, as consulting winemaker. 

Cambie is the Midas of the Southern Rhône, and La Cantarelle is his brainchild. He suggested the blend of Grenache from 70-100-year-old vines bolstered by a small amount of young-vine Syrah to lend spicy verve, and under his watch, the grapes follow an ultra-traditional Southern Rhône protocol. They are hand-harvested, lightly whole-cluster crushed, then fermented in tank. The wine then ages in concrete (not a hint of oak) for at least 24 months before being bottled unfined and unfiltered to let its color and aromatics shine. 

The result is a bottle that belongs alongside some of Cambie’s finest work in Châteauneuf-du-Pape—an exemplar of Southern Rhône ripeness and raciness that won us from the start.