Château Mont-Redon Le Plateau Châteauneuf-du-Pape 2016

60% Grenache, 40% Syrah. Deep garnet. Highly perfumed aromas of raspberry and cherry preserves, candied flowers, mocha and incense are enlivened by a smoky mineral flourish. Alluringly sweet and incisive, offering vibrant, densely packed red fruit preserve, cherry cola, candied lavender and spicecake flavors that deepen steadily with aeration. Shows superb detail and minerally thrust on a strikingly long, seamless finish that features polished tannins and lingering five-spice powder and floral notes. This is the first vintage for this bottling – there’s not much of it – and the fruit was drawn from the estate’s oldest vines, which were planted in 1923. Drinking window: 2025-2037. Score – 97. (Josh Raynolds, vinous.com, Oct. 2021)