2007 Chateauneuf du Pape

The same can be said of the 2007 Chateauneuf du Pape Cuvee Marie Beurrier, which has put on weight, and again, is a better wine now, after four years of elevage, than it was when I first tasted it, where it was slightly skinny and atypical for the vintage, but now it’s showing the vintage’s strong fruit character, full-bodied power, and plenty of opulence and glycerin. This is the brilliance of what Bonneau does. The long elevage in barrel, which makes no sense to either me or any progressive-thinking person, not to mention every oenologist that has probably ever visited these cellars, does indeed work, and thank God there are mysteries in wine that we will never understand. Henri Bonneau’s winemaking and elevage are certainly two of them. Visiting with Henri Bonneau at his subterranean wine cellar, which could easily double as a bat cave, is always one of the highlights of a year of wine tasting. This property began estate bottling in 1927, with Bonneau’s father, but can trace its history back hundreds of years. Of course, since the death of Jacques Reynaud of Rayas in 1997, Henri remains the patron saint of all things “ancien” in Chateauneuf du Pape. He is revered like no other producer in the village, and while getting an appointment is never easy, once he is familiar enough with someone, he is nothing less than a hoot and a howl to talk to and to taste with. As Harry Karis points out in his absolutely magnificent book on Chateauneuf du Pape, The Chateauneuf du Pape Wine Book, Bonneau’s favorite subjects are gastronomy, the Algerian War, and a third one that Harry didn’t mention, young women. Speaking with a Provencal twang, it’s not always easy to understand exactly what he’s saying, but his animated face and extraordinary passion for these subjects, as well as his own wines, are always a treat. Everything about Bonneau’s estate goes against modernism. The cellars are filthy, and the barrels range in age from 10 years old to probably over a century. He has a relatively small estate of just under 17 acres, and he doesn’t really bottle anything for at least five years. His most recent bottlings include the 2004 Cuvee Marie Beurrier and Reserve des Celestins and the 2005 Reserve des Celestins, which won’t be released until next year. Importer: Alain Junguenet, Wines of France, Mountainside, NJ; tel. (908) 654-6173