Can you count to Châteauneuf-du-Pape?

Châteauneuf-du-Pape has over the last decade or two seen a tremendous development both in terms of popularity and more importantly in terms of quality of the wines (hopefully the two aspects are linked). It has also been named “Wine Village of the Year” by the Swedish wine tasting club Munskänkarna (with 20,000 members!). Some of you may think it is a bit tedious to remember all the 13 permitted grape varieties (or is it 15, or perhaps 22?). To make life a bit easier, it is interesting to see how important the different red grape varieties are in Châteauneuf in total (we’ve taken these statistics from Harry Karis’ excellent book on Châteauneuf-du-Pape, read our review here: http://www.bkwine.com/vininformation/wine_books.htm):

Total acreage: 3 231 hectares
- Grenache 2322 hectares
- Syrah 350 hectares
- Mourvèdre 214 hectares
- Cinsault 83 hectares
- Counoise 14 hectares
- Muscardin 10,83 hectares
- Vaccarèse 4,11 hectares
- Picpoul 1,80 hectares
- Terret noir 0,89 ha

So if you sometimes forget the picpoul or the terret noire you are forgiven!