Châteauneuf-du-Pape, Château de Beaucastel, Roussanne Vieilles Vignes, Perrin - Château de Beaucastel 2020

Even better, the 2020 Châteauneuf Du Pape Roussanne Vieilles Vignes comes from a single parcel of very old vines and is 100% Roussanne brought up in barrel. It too is medium to full-bodied and incredibly concentrated, with brilliant white currants, green almond, honeyed mineral, and spice-driven aromas and flavors. The balance is just about perfect, as is the purity of fruit, and this incredible white is one of the top releases in the vintage. As I’ve written in the past, it’s the Montrachet of the Southern Rhône and can evolve for decades in cold cellars.

Wonderful nose of acacia honey and ripe apricot. Super-concentrated with great textural complexity, this white Chateauneuf is built on a lavish scale, but is so precise and glides off into the far distance. 100% roussanne from ancient vines. From organically grown grapes. Drink or hold.

From vines planted in 1909, the 2020 Chateauneuf du Pape Roussanne Vieilles Vignes is entirely barrel-fermented and matured, half in new oak from Chassin and half in second-use steam-bent barriques from Dargaud & Jaegle. It's much like the regular Beaucastel CdP Blanc, but more—and sometimes more really is more. With waves of honeyed pear and pineapple fruit folded together on the full-bodied palate, it's creamy and rich, yet vibrant and refreshing on the long, luxurious finish. The aging curve of this wine is never easy to predict, as some vintages close up tight soon after release only to open up after several years in the cellar, while others seem to exude opulence throughout their life.

This singular wine from Beaucastel is without doubt one of the great wines of the Rhône. Pale straw in colour, the nose is exotic with mandarin, beeswax, heather and a vast array of blossom fragrance. The palate brings both a ripe orange character but also deep and pure peach fruit. A wine of both depth and breadth, the expansive core brings beeswax, citrus rind, bay leaf and dried herbs. For such a full bodied and generously-textured wine there is a wonderful underlying freshness - a fine bead of acidity props everything up throughout. Pithy, almost tannic, towards the finish, this is a long and very refined wine.