Domaine de la Vieille Julienne, Chateauneuf-du-Pape, Les Hauts Lieux 2016

A true “wow” wine, the deep, concentrated 2016 Châteauneuf-du-Pape Les Hauts-Lieux (there's 20% Mourvèdre) offers awesome notes of blackcurrants, smoked meats, graphite, crushed rocks, and licorice. Extraordinarily concentrated, perfectly balanced, structured, and long, it's another sensational wine from this estate. It needs 4-5 years of bottle age and will cruise for 15-20 after that.

Brilliant ruby-red. A highly perfumed bouquet features fresh, mineral-tinged red berry liqueur, lavender and incense scents, and mineral and Asian spice flourishes add complexity. Pliant and seamless on the palate, showing a superb blend of density and energy to the sweet Chambord, cherry, floral pastille and spicecake flavors. Fine-grained, building tannins give shape to the strikingly long, vibrant finish, which emphatically echoes the red fruit and floral notes.

From three high altitude parcels close to the limestone plateau, with some clay in the mix. It's darker and more aromatically brooding compared to his Trois Sources, fuller-bodied with really concentrated and inky fruit. It is very fresh and lively too, with mineral grit and a minty kick on the finish. This has a larger tannic load and is a bigger, more ageworthy wine.