2008 Chateauneuf-du-Pape

Henri Bonneau told me that his thought now is that there will be a single bottling of Chateauneuf from 2008. "It isn't the kind of vintage where you can justify a reserve wine," he explained. "There just isn't enough concentration to the fruit." Over the last few years these notoriously unkempt cellars have become better organized, or easier to understand, and there is clearly a lot more than meets the eye to Bonneau's methodology. The wines also seem brighter, with (relatively) less volatile character than in the past, but their personality has not been compromised. But don't expect Bonneau to suddenly begin releasing his wines earlier. "The wine gets bottled and sold when the time is right for it, not the marketplace," he said.