The 5000-year history of wine has been dominated by the idea that blending often creates the most magical wines. Whether a marriage of villages, vineyards or grape varieties, the magic comes from the complexity that sometimes only blending can give.

But on the eastern plateau of Châteauneuf-du-Pape, 6th-generation winemaker Hélène Chouvet has discovered a special kind of alchemy by blending two particular barrels. They are both demi-muids, 600-liters in size, and the wood is old. But the magic that she found by marrying the two barrels led her not only to bottle them as a single blend but to name the barrels, "David" and "Goliath."

Since she first made the cuvée in 2005, it has developed a cult following—drawn to the wine's purity, the understated ripeness of its old-vine Grenache, and perhaps the fact that so little is made and only in the best years. 

In an era of super-charged Châteauneufs, this beauty takes its place with the likes of Vieux Télégraphe, Henri Bonneau and Charvin for its old-school classicism.

Perhaps not coincidentally, David et Goliath's fruit comes from Les Saumades, which is a close neighbor to La Crau, where both Bonneau and Vieux Télégraphe source their old-vine Grenache.

David et Goliath is 95% old-vine Grenache, with the balance Syrah, from Les Saumade’s boulder-strewn red clay soil. Given a month-long fermentation and maceration with indigenous yeasts, its tiny production is then aged for one year in the two barrels.

Production per vintage is tiny, needless to say. We were thrilled to find a small parcel of this rarity.