Henri Bonneau Châteauneuf-du-Pape Reserve des Celestins 2004

Bonneau’s Châteauneufs, particularly the mythic Réserve des Célestins, are not only fantastically complex, immense, and capable of decades of development; they are also endowed with that rare and magical sense of extra dimension found only in the greatest wines. Henri represents the 12th generation of his family to make wine in Châteauneuf du Pape, dating back to 1667, and his methods today continue to have more in common with the 17th century than with contemporary winemaking. From his inaugural vintage of 1956, Bonneau has stayed the course—he doesn’t de-stem, gently crushes the whole clusters, and then ferments for three weeks in concrete tanks with frequent pump-overs for gentle extraction. Bonneau adds back his vin de presse for structure and then ages the wine in a haphazard collection of neutral foudres, demi-muids, and piéces, none of them younger than ten years old.