1999 Chateauneuf du Pape Reserve des Celestins

Bonneau’s 1999 Châteauneuf-du-Pape Reserve des Celestins was utterly captivating right out of the bottle. It showed marvelous depth and richness at first, but then lost some intensity over several hours. A mélange of candied cherries, herbs and dried flowers lingered on the finish.

Henri Bonneau released the 1999 Chateauneuf du Pape Reserve des Celestins (one of the finest wines of the vintage) in 2004. Although slightly austere and closed at present, it offers a wonderful bouquet of smoked meats, ground pepper, sweet kirsch, currants, blood, herbs, and God knows what else. Rich and medium to full-bodied, but tannic and closed, it requires 3-4 years of cellaring, and should drink well for two decades. One of the controversies surrounding Henri Bonneau is what happened to those cuvees that were supposed to go into the Cuvee Marie Beurrier in 1998. Bonneau has maintained over the last several years that everything was so spectacular in 1998 that there would be no Marie Beurrier. But, he did bottle a tiny quantity prior to the harvest in 2004 to satisfy one of his European customers. However, I do not believe any of that wine will be allocated to America (unless it comes through the grey market) since so little was made, and the quality was so high in 1998 that all of the cuvees that fermented dry will be designated as Reserve des Celestins. That said, one never is quite sure what Henri Bonneau intends to do until the wine is in bottle. Readers should be prepared for just about anything. Importer: Alain Junguenet, Wines of France, Mountainside, NJ; tel. (908) 654-6173