The 2016 Chateauneuf du Pape is full-bodied but balanced, with plenty of richness and concentration but also a certain paradoxical lightness. It offers complex garrigue and anise notes, a blend of cherry and raspberry fruit, a silky texture and a long finish that shows no sign of the wine's 15.8% alcohol. For technocrats, the wine's pH is 3.7, which is sufficient acidity to maintain a fine sense of balance. This lovely wine should drink well for at least two decades. Together with the 2015 and the 2017, it will be a compelling trio of wines to follow over the years. Drink: 2020-2040. Rated 97+. - Joe Czerwinski, The Wine Advocate Issue 238, August, 2018

Vivid ruby-red. Ripe, intensely perfumed raspberry, blackberry, cherry pit and pungent flowers on the highly expressive, mineral- and spice-tinged nose. Juicy and seamless in texture, offering palate-staining yet graceful red and blue fruit liqueur and floral pastille flavors and an exotic suggestion of candied fennel. Delivers flavor intensity without excess weight and shows no rough edges. Closes sweet, sappy and extremely long, with smooth, slow-building tannins framing lingering red fruit preserve and floral notes. Rated (95-97) - Josh Raynolds, vinous.com, July, 2018.

Deep bright-rimmed ruby. Cassis, cherry pit, licorice, garrigue and an intense mineral overtone on the deeply perfumed nose. Intense, palate-staining bitter cherry and dark berry flavors show outstanding depth and become sweeter and more lively with aeration. Picks up a spicy quality on the youthfully tannic finish, which shows superb clarity and dark-fruit-driven persistence. Rated (93‑95). - Josh Raynolds, vinous.com, April, 2018.

Bottled only a week before my visit, I was blown away by how well Beaucastel's 2016 Chateauneuf du Pape was showing. It's full-bodied, creamy, lush and rich, with layers of raspberry fruit, garrigue and spice that unfold across a seamless palate. No doubt it will go through cycles of being open and closed throughout its lifespan, but it would be a mistake to simply order a case, put it into storage and forget about it without trying one first and swooning over the sheer lusciousness and youthful complexity. Rated 97. - Joe Czerwinski, The Wine Advocate, Issue 238, August, 2018.

Deep bright-rimmed red. An explosively perfumed bouquet evokes ripe fruits, incense and exotic spices, and a sexy floral pastille nuance builds in the glass. Sappy, broad and expansive on the palate, offering sweet raspberry preserve, boysenberry and spicecake flavors that are given spine and lift by a core of juicy acidity. Closes on a gently tannic note, displaying superb clarity and spicy thrust and leaving sweet red fruit preserve and Asian spice notes behind. Rated (94-96). - Josh Raynolds, vinous.com July, 2018.

Lurid ruby. An expansive, complex bouquet evokes cherry liqueur, blueberry, incense and candied flowers, along with a smoky mineral nuance that builds in the background. Shows outstanding depth and energy to the red and blue fruit and spicecake flavors, which become more lively and gain sweetness with aeration. Closes on a suave lavender pastille note, offering rounded, even tannins and emphatic, blue-fruit-driven persistence. Rated (93-95). - Josh Raynolds, vinous.com July, 2018.

Produce of 55% Grenache, 25% Syrah, 10% Carignan, 5% Cinsault and 5% Mourvèdre grown on 20 acres adjacent to the Châteauneuf-du-Pape vineyards of Domaine de La Janasse. This superb Côtes-du-Rhône has been a go-to bottle for us for some years now, and the 2015 does not disappoint; deep, deep ruby red, with hints of garrigue and stone almost wholly subsumed by sun-drenched and delicious ripe grapey aromas; rich, round and powerful with ripe kirsch-like Grenache flavors and chalky stony tannins building on the palate and giving shape and structure on to the warm and invigorating finish.

Produce of fruit from three vineyard sites, Le Méal with loose alluvial soils with a prevalence of glacial stones, Les Murets more granitic soils with similar alluvial deposits and its namesake Chante-Alouette with loess soils with a fine layer of clay and limestone. The fruit is hand-harvested and fermented partly in 600-litre demi-muid, partly in vat at controlled temperatures with regular stirring of the lees. Typically stately Marsanne aromatics save this up-front toasty, yeasty quality which just melts into more discreet hints of honey-laden beeswax and freshly rain-soaked straw (Philipp noted fig and hazelnut, then honeysuckle and lime); extravagant on entry, rich, slippery smooth and emollient on the tongue (the wonderful tactile qualities of this wine should not be understated), sumptuous even, yet with nerve and spine and an ever so satisfying nature to its core; one might reasonably deduce that Hermitage Blanc such as this is white wine with a certain preeminence.

This small château is located near the town of Saint-Gilles just west of the Rhône River some 5 miles from the Mediterranean Sea. It is owned an operated by the Cornut family — Sylvia is the oenologist, with her husband François and their two sons tending to the vineyards. The rocky soils here are reminiscent of Châteauneuf-du-Pape and the fruit is always picked late, ensuring deep and profound wines with soft tannins. François is meticulous in his viticultural practices and is a believer in sustainable agriculture, using no synthetic herbicides, pesticides or fertilizers on any of his vineyards or crops. Sylvia and the boys take over in the winery (the boys work a lot) where she ferments all fruit separately in stainless steel tanks by varietal and by vineyard site. This 2016 Château Guiot Costières de Nîmes is a blend of hand-harvested Grenache and Syrah fruit; very primary aromas of fleshy ripe grapes and grape pomace with suggestion of blue plum, kirsch and a good healthy winegrowing earth; just full and fruity and round on the tongue with nice crisp bright acids and supple tannins lending the gentlest astringency and keeping things refreshing and vibrant to the long and flavorful finish.