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It's fascinating to be able to tour around the world, just by letting the wines of the world wash over your palate. Yet at times the history of international viticulture can be as intriguing as the experience of sampling the wines themselves. With an increased attention focused on the "New World" wine regions, such as those found in Australia, the United States, Chile, Argentina, and even those emerging from South Africa, it's becoming more and more easy to adopt a wine diet that features exclusively these varietals and blends. That's not to disregard the high-quality wines coming out of France, Italy, Spain, and Germany, with a few notable inclusions on the international wine scene from Portugal, Georgia, and Switzerland. But looking beyond the label, the cépage, and the region, there's a whole lot more to be found getting in-depth with your wine appreciation.
A few years ago, a discussion in one of the lesser known Paris hotels touched on that very topic, and has struck a chord ever since. In this ultimately enlightening discussion about the origins of leading names in French wines, the renowned Châteauneuf-du-Pape wines were central to the flow of conversation, for it turns out that this title is no coincidence. With the fourteenth-century shift of the papacy from Rome to Avignon, in the south of France, it wasn't just European spiritual history that was about to be re-written, but also culinary history. The Rhône Valley wasn't at the time a noted wine-growing region, but that was all to change with the first pope at Avignon, Clement V, the former archbishop of Bordeaux, and his immediate successor, John XXII. With his grounding in Bordeaux wines, it's interesting to note that yields from Clement's Rhône Valley vineyard would in time surpass those at his previous Bordeaux vineyard - even though his former Pessac site still produces a Bordeaux grand cru, dubbed in his honour the 'Château Pape Clément.' Although it's virtually impossible to pinpoint exactly how extensive the papal vineyards of the Rhône Valley Châteauneuf-du-Pape were, there remain to this day numerous wines that sport the papal insignia and the region has certainly become the centre of one of the most prestigious wine industries in the south of France.
No doubt a hotel in San Francisco would have revealed far more about the heritage of Californian wines, or a chance encounter at a bar in Sydney would have shed far more light on Hunter Valley wines, but there you have it, for wines that one step closer to divine perfection, it has to be Châteauneuf-du-Pape!
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