Super Chateauneuf Du Papes

Subscribe to BusinessWeek

Chteauneuf du Pape offers enormous diversity in styles. At its best, it's a wine that has a deep ruby/purple color, a sumptuous texture, full body, and can evolve over 10 to 15-plus years. It often smells like an open-air marketplace in Provence, with the aromas of lavender, fennel, licorice, black truffles, pepper, nutmeg, smoked meats, and copious quantities of sweet black cherries and blackberry fruit. Very appealing in their youth because of the sweetness of their tannins, Chteauneuf du Papes are remarkably flexible with an assortment of foods. Here are some of the excellent 2006s that are just hitting the marketplace.



89 points

2006 Paul Autard Chteauneuf du Pape



This deep plum/garnet-hued 2006 Chteauneuf du Pape exhibits lovely berry fruit notes intermixed with scents of underbrush, licorice, roasted herbs, and plums. It is a delicious, soft, beautifully concentrated red that is best consumed over the next seven to eight years. $45



90 points

2006 Bois de Boursan Chteauneuf du Pape



The 2006 vintage is a very strong one for Bois de Boursan, and its regular cuvee of 2006 Chteauneuf du Pape is outstanding. With rich, attractive, earthy notes, and plenty of floral and spice box characteristics interwoven with dark, ripe red and black fruits, lavender, and oodles of Provenal typicity, it is full-bodied, fleshy, and already gorgeous to drink, but promises to evolve for at least a decade or more. $35-$42



90 points

2006 Les Cailloux Chteauneuf du Pape



The 2006 Chteauneuf du Pape from Les Cailloux displays the vintage's distinctive, explosively earthy, spicy, peppery, garigue-dominated essence of Provence-like aromatics. The fruit takes a back seat to the spicy, earthy component. This full-bodied, supple-textured effort is already seductive and round. Enjoy it over the next 10 to 12 years. $35-$42



90 points

2006 Raymond Usseglio Chteauneuf du Pape Cuvee Girard



Raymond Usseglio's 2006s are beautiful wines. Between his two traditional cuvees, the 2006 Girard -- the cuvee imported here to the U.S. by Peter Weygandt -- is richer, deeper, with more meat, lavender, and licorice, although both are very fine wines. The Girard gets the edge in points because tasting proves there's more there. $48



91 points

2006 Domaine Grand Veneur Chteauneuf du Pape



A sleeper of the vintage, the 2006 Chteauneuf du Pape from Grand Veneur is a seductive effort offering plenty of earth, tapenade, and spice as well as black cherry and cassis fruit. Deep, full-bodied, rich, chewy, and totally seductive, it can be enjoyed over the next decade. $40-$45



91 points

2006 Vieux Donjon Chteauneuf du Pape



Vieux Donjon's 2006 Chteauneuf du Pape reveals the vintage's peppery, earthy spiciness along with notes of forest floor, root vegetables, black cherries, and meat. This rich, medium- to full-bodied effort possesses moderately soft tannin as well as good body, depth, and richness. It is a strong effort that should age nicely for 15-plus years. $55-$60



93 points

2006 Charvin Chteauneuf du Pape



Charvin's 2006 Chteauneuf du Pape has turned out to be one of the vintage's top efforts. Lovely sweet notes of glove leather, roasted meats, spice box, ground pepper, kirsch, and raspberries are present in this deep, full-bodied 2006. More evolved than the 2007, with copious concentration, elegance, and a Burgundy grand cru-like complexity as well as freshness, it should be enjoyed over the next 12 to 15-plus years. $65



93 points

2006 Domaine de la Janasse Chteauneuf du Pape



This dense purple-colored 2006 Chteauneuf du Pape, 80% foudre-aged grenache and 20% syrah and mourvdre aged in small barrels, offers a beautiful bouquet of blackberries, roasted meats, sweet herbs, and new saddle leather. Full-bodied and superconcentrated with no hard edges, it should drink beautifully for 12 to 15 years. $45



95 points

2006 Chteau Beaucastel Chteauneuf du Pape



Beaucastel's 2006 Chteauneuf du Pape is performing even better from bottle than it did last year. Its dense plum/ruby/purple color is followed by a big, sweet perfume of black truffles, camphor, earth, incense, new saddle leather, and loads of peppery, blackberry, and herb-infused, meaty, black cherry fruit. Deep, full-bodied, and dense, with sweet tannin, this explosively rich Chteauneuf is a stronger effort than the 2005, 2004, or 2003. Anticipated maturity: 2012-2028. $85



98 points

2006 Clos des Papes Chteauneuf du Pape



The 2006 Chteauneuf du Pape is one of the two or three candidates for the wine of the vintage. An extraordinarily great wine, the 2006 is far superior to the 2005, which was amazing, and while made in a different style, is as great as the 2003, and such legends as 1990 and 1978. Fashioned from a minuscule 21 hectoliters per hectare, and tipping the scales at 15.2% natural alcohol, the 2006 boasts a dense ruby/purple color to the rim, in addition to an extraordinary bouquet of melted licorice, spring flowers, raspberries, black currants, spice box, and earth. In the mouth, it is utterly profound -- full-bodied and multidimensional with astonishing purity, length, equilibrium, and intensity. This is a superb vintage for proprietor Vincent Avril, and he deserves accolades for producing a wine of such incredible intensity and complexity. Think of Clos des Papes as a Chteauneuf du Pape with the complexity of a top-notch grand cru Burgundy from the Cte de Nuits. $85