Actually, he's just hit a market characteristic. Chateauneuf du Pape has several really good small Domaines, but they do tend to skim the quality off of the top, and price the good stuff at a premium. So he's run into an 80/20 rule. The top 20% are quite tasty, but somewhat pricey wines, whereas the bottom 80% are living off the reputation of the better ones, but they are rather indistinguished for the price they get, which is inflated by the lofty reps and prices of their bigger, better brothers. And Rhone wines from less famous towns are of comparable quality to the 80% Chateuneufs, but you can buy those other less famous Rhone wines for half the price.

Among other Rhone towns: Cote Rotie is almost universally high quality stuff, but it runs the gamut from pricey, to very pricey.

Hermitage is also pretty consistently high quality, but production is quite small, hence it is also very pricey.

St. Joseph and Crozes-Hermitage, tend to be reliable, good quality - but not great, and substantial production, so they are a consistent source of good, moderately priced robust wines.

Which leads me to my favorite place in the area - Cornas, which has recently had several quality driven producers that have made really fine wines, that have approached Cote Rotie and Hermitage in quality, but still don't have that lofty a reputation as those two towns, so the wines can be fine values for really good quality.

Chateauneuf du Pape has the largest overall production in the Rhone - but with high volumes and hundreds of producers, comes a wide range of quality and pricing, and makes the area confusing for someone who's just trying to get a feel for the wines of the area. They run the gamut from junk, to spectacular, and all levels in between, and a wide range of values as well.