The Winery I' Abbaye of Châteauneuf-du-Pape of Rhone Valley

Decanter hosted its first tasting for the monthly event series Taste with the Experts last month at its very own Tasting Suite in London’s Paddington. Host Andy Howard MW guided 12 guests through an exclusive blind tasting of the Médoc Grand Cru Classé 2017, often described as a ‘forgotten vintage’ but one that produced a wonderful array of wines that are already approachable and more than deserve their place on tables and in cellars. The event was a very special evening giving Decan ...

The largest-ever year for entries, an incredible 18,244 wines were judged at the 2022 Decanter World Wine Awards – with just 163 wines awarded a Platinum medal. ‘Winning a Platinum medal is something really exceptional’ said Decanter World Wine Awards Co-Chair Sarah Jane Evans MW. ‘Platinum is like the stratospheric level’ she commented, ‘so it’s really saying to the winemaker: this is a great wine.’ Making up just 0.87% of the total wines tasted at the 2022 c ...

Some Châteauneufs are more reliable than others. When I visit the region to taste the new vintage every year, Domaine de la Janasse’s cuvée Vieilles Vignes regularly features among the best. It’s a particularly dense and concentrated wine when young, and it always strikes me that, even for Châteauneuf, it’s a wine that needs extended ageing to show its best. I was keen to acquire a more complete understanding of how this cuvée develops, so I visited brother-and-sister team Isabelle and Christoph ...