Clos du Mont-Olivet La Cuvée du Papet Châteauneuf-du-Pape Red Rhone Blend 2015

Tim

Drinking with Mom and Dad for Christmas 2022. Doing a side-by-side with their standard 2019. Color is also garnet, but more brown around the edges than its younger pair. Legs are also more intense, and the nose is so much more powerful. The dark leather, the tobacco, the currant, and the cacophony almost smacks your nose. The berries seem to have mellowed into the darker bouquet of elemental scents. Much smoother than its younger pair, the bright juice is now a wave of those foundational scents. The flavor lingers longer, it has a subtle transformation that holds onto your tongue, in place of that rough sandpaper feeling you are left with in the younger, you are left with something like the feeling of wiping off perspiration, being cool and dry, but with the endless flow from within that doesn't leave you gasping for water. Truly one of the best of this appellation I have ever had. Would drink again, although it was $69 at Blanchards.

Alex Sagalchik

Incredibly smooth, full-bodied. Long after taste.

Alan Doughty

Slightly spicy, iron laced redcurrant/cherry fruit on a medium bodied palate.