2019 Chateauneuf du Pape La Reserve
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Tasting notes
I tasted two bottles of the 2019 Chateauneuf du Pape La Reserve at the domaine. While it doesn't exhibit the knockout florals and intricate complexity of the 2020 version, it's still a wonderfully rich, decadent wine. Super ripe and dark-fruited, it offers up scents of cola, black cherries and blackberries on the nose, is full-bodied, concentrated and velvety on the palate, then finishes long and dusty, with notes of dark chocolate joining the mix. A second bottle showed more red fruit notes and lacked the chocolaty finish, while seeming a bit fresher and firmer. The rating represents a composite score; I wouldn't turn down a glass of either one.
Critic scores
Alistair Cooper MW, jancisrobinson.com
Jeff Leve, The Wine Cellar Insider
More reviews and scores
Lastly, and a perfect wine, the 2019 Châteauneuf Du Pape Reserve is a 60/40 split of Grenache and Mourvèdre that’s brought up in demi-muids. It shows the vintage’s ripe, sexy, yet also concentrated and powerful style, offering full-bodied aromas and flavors of red and blue fruits, Provençal herbs, pepper, and violets. Possessing sensational elegance, perfect balance, and ripe, polished tannins, it’s always the more aristocratic, classy, seamless wine compared to the more exuberant, overflowing with character Les Quartz release. This matches the otherworldly 2001, 2007, 2010, and 2016. The 2019s from Le Clos du Caillou showed brilliantly, and this is clearly a great vintage for the estate, with the wines equaling what was produced in 2016, 2010, 2007, 2005, and 2001. These are silky, elegant, yet also concentrated wines across the board, and despite the multitude of cuvées, they all have singular, distinct personalities. These are brilliant wines readers will love to have in their cellars.
Vivid ruby. A highly perfumed bouquet displays ripe red/blue fruit liqueur qualities along with suggestions of exotic spices, potpourri and smoky minerals. Densely packed and broad on the palate, offering alluringly sweet boysenberry, cherry compote, lavender and fruitcake flavors that show superb delineation and a supporting undercurrent of juicy acidity. Delivers outstanding clarity and a hint of game on a sweet, youthfully chewy, extremely long finish shaped by dusty, slow-building tannins.
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Product details
Grenache/ Garnacha , Mourvedre/Monastrell/Mataro
Red
Dry