1998 Chateauneuf du Pape Cuvee Special

A unique and wild expression of Châteauneuf-du-Pape, the 1998 Henri Bonneau Cuvée Spéciale is late harvest Grenache in all its glory. Heady and port like, with an Amarone profile of ripe plum, blood, garrigue, and brown sugar, the wine is brilliant on the palate with a seamless, full bodied profile, sweet fruit, and a blockbuster finish. This is certainly not for the faint of heart, and if you have a dislike for high alcohol wines you should avoid this, but it’s utterly unique and downright captivating. While not the match of the ’90 right now, I think this will surpass that wine in 10 years.

Deep red color. Porty cherry and cassis aromas are complicated by cured meat, dried rose, licorice, pipe tobacco and cracked pepper. Lush and packed with sweet kirsch and dark berry flavors, slowly picking up velvety tannins but maintaining improbable freshness. Juicy raspberry and strawberry preserve flavors kick in on the long, clinging finish. Amarone-like in style.

Bonneau’s 1998 Chateauneuf du Pape Cuvee Speciale is something along the lines of 16.5%-plus natural alcohol with about 4-5% residual sugar. It is an amazing wine that tastes relatively dry, with huge extract of blackberries, roasted meats, and sweet strawberries and cherries intermixed with licorice, smoke and pepper. It makes a massive introduction on the palate and expands vertically, as if it were a skyscraper. It is intense, rich, and compelling, and no doubt capable of lasting 30-40 years. (The 1990 Cuvee Speciale, which has much in common with this wine, is still an infant in terms of its development.) This is a remarkable, but controversial wine. It is always difficult to figure out just what is going on here. For over 15 years, my annual tasting through the hodgepodge of cellars and ancient barrels, foudres, and tanks in this underground maze known as the caves of Henri Bonneau is one of the gustatory highlights of the year. Yet the only thing that seems certain is that whatever comes out in bottle is usually much better than what you taste out of barrel. Henri Bonneau, who is now working in close conjunction with a new collaborator, Michel Roman, to help in doing some of the work in the cellar as he edges into his late sixties, called 2004 a “correct year.” Importer: Alain Junguenet, Wines of France, Mountainside, NJ; tel. (908) 654-6173