2012 Châteauneuf-du-Pape Réserve des Célestins

There won't be a Marie Beurrier bottling from 2009, according to Henri and Marcel Bonneau, which speaks to their high opinion of the vintage. But I wouldn't assume that this will make it any easier to find their Réserve des Célestins, much less make it any cheaper, in spite of it being the lone bottling from '09. These are among the wildest sets of wines that I taste every year, but, as I've noted before, they show a little more polish and upfront fruitiness nowadays than they did in years past.

I hasten to add that this is strictly relative, so fans of the domain shouldn't fear that Bonneau's wines are any less distinctive than before. Less time in barrel can't be the explanation for today's slightly less wild wines, because Bonneau still insists on "bottling the wine when it's ready." Rushing the wines into bottle (which by this domain's regimen would mean less than four years after the harvest) "would mean that maybe they didn't have a chance to grow," as Bonneau put it this year. That was an especially important concern, he added, in years like 2010 and 2005, "where the wines really want to breathe, and not enough time in cask would have made them too clenched."

Bonneau is a big fan of the 2009 vintage, and to make the point of just how well a warm-vintage wine can age Marcel pulled out a bottle of the 1990 Célestins that was simply ethereal, with the energy of a much younger wine from a much cooler vintage. We followed it over the course of an hour and, if anything, it was more youthful when the glasses were emptied than when the cork was pulled.E241

When I asked Henri Bonneau about the ageworthiness of most modern-day Chateauneufs, he commented that "many wines today are bottled much younger than was the tradition when I was learning, with a lot more reduction than before." That gives a lot of primary "obvious" fruit, he said, which is good for people who like to drink their Chateauneuf when it's young. "But what about after the wine has been in bottle for a while? Will it have the texture of a wine that slowly took on oxygen during elevage, will it have as much complexity?" That led to talk about the tannic structure of wines that are rushed too quickly into bottle (which means pretty much every red wine in the world, measured by the Bonneau bottling regimen). He said that he likes to bottle and release his wines when he thinks that the fruit and tannins are in harmony, "but not so much that they have to be drunk immediately." As I noted last year, the wines here seem to have acquired more polish than in the past, but that's strictly relative as these are still among the most idiosyncratic wines made in France today. They've always had quirkiness and personality to burn, so long-time fans have no reason for alarm. The 2005 Marie Beurrier, which Bonneau opened after our tasting, is still extremely young but displays very impressive depth, energy and concentrated red fruit character and notes of woodsmoke and minerals. Hands off, please.