Clos des Brusquières
Claude Courtil Thibaut – Chateauneuf-du-Pape
The domain has 9 hectares for red Chateauneuf du Pape. It was founded by Claude’s great grandfather. About 1900 his grandfather was one of the few in the town to bottle the wine calling it Clos Courtil. Until 1996 a great part of the production was sold to negociants.
Virtually a brand new estate! Claude Courtil sold everything off to negociants until the 1996 vintage, the first to be estate bottled, depriving the world of a good source of good quality, inexpensive, ultra-traditionally made Châteauneuf-du-Pape.
Claude is something of a loner, spending most of his time quietly in the fields or at the winery, gradually improving the quality of his small production. Most of his eight and a half hectares are to the north of the village on stony soil. As an indication of Claude’s reticence, we learnt after we had already purchased a parcel of his wines that Claude’s uncle is the legendary Henri Bonneau, one of the most revered winemakers in Châteauneuf-du-Pape. The relationship between Claude and Henri is strong as he is not only his uncle but his master as well. Claude told us he learned everything from his uncle who taught him all about the growth of the plant, the importance of manual work of the ground and the vines, the vinification with respect to natural processes, ageing, everything.
