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As it’s always been, the still plum/ruby-colored 1989 Châteauneuf du Pape Hommage A Jacques Perrin is a richer, more powerful version of the 1990. Classic dark fruits, melted licorice, truffle, earth, and garrigue notes all just come jumping out of the glass, and it’s deep, full-bodied, and just a beast of a wine. Fully mature, yet still with a stacked mid-palate, this awesome wine should be consumed any time over the coming 10-15 years. The 1989 is the first vintage for this special cuvee, which was created as a tribute to the late Jacques Perrin, who passed away in 1978. Aged all in foudre and almost always a blend of 60% Mourvèdre, 20% Grenache, 10% Counoise and the rest Syrah, it’s only produced in top vintages and there are a scant 400-500 cases to go around in each vintage.Jeb Dunnuck | 100 JDThe first vintage for this cuvee, the still inky colored 1989 Châteauneuf du Pape Hommage À Jacques Perrin is deeper, richer and more powerful than the 1990, yet slightly less evolved and exuberant. From a scorching hot and dry year, this incredible cuvee is massive on all counts, with classic dark fruits, roasted herbs, charred meats, melted licorice and truffle aromas and flavors, full-bodied richness, a dense, layered, multidimensional texture and a blockbuster finish that just wouldn’t quit. Like the 1990, there’s certainly some evolution here, and it’s a gorgeous drink today, but it should easily continue to evolve through 2030+.Robert Parker Wine Advocate | 100 RP(Châteauneuf du Pape “Hommage à Jacques Perrin”- Château de Beaucastel (mag)) The 1989 Hommage à Jacques Perrin was the inaugural vintage for this luxury cuvée, and to my palate, it remains still the finest example by quite some margin. None of the subsequent vintages have been able to match the depth and elegant grandeur of the 1989 Hommage bottling, and this is one of the greatest examples of Châteauneuf du Pape produced in the twentieth century! The 1989 Hommage à Jacques Perrin was a last-minute inclusion to our tasting lineup, as our host, Omar Khan, “found a stray magnum and thought it would be an interesting addition.” That is classic Omar understatement! The wine is absolutely at its apogee as it closes in on its thirtieth birthday, offering up bottomless depth and brilliant complexity on both the nose and palate. The bouquet is brilliant, delivering a very refined blend of sweet dark berries, cassis, a touch of tree bark, a complex base of soil tones, cigar smoke, a dollop of saddle leather and lovely, haunting botanicals in the upper register. On the palate the wine full-bodied, pure, complex and rock solid at the core, with great soil signature, glorious focus and grip and just a whisper of backend tannin continuing to perk up the very, very long, refined and magical finish. This is even better out of magnum than it is out of regular format! (Drink between 2019 - 2050)John Gilman | 98 JGVisually it's starting to show its age now, a touch of brown to the crimson. Some polished wood notes, it has the intriguing worn smell of an antique shop. There's a little volatile acidity lift, the aromas show a balsamic vein, almost a slightly madeirised tang. On the palate there's more: coffee bean, vanilla fudge, Lapsang Souchong tea and stewed plum. Generous on the palate still, with appealing sucrosity and great length. This will be as old as some wine lovers would want it to be, but it won't fall apart any time soon. Still some tannin and fruit, but it's fading now. A stately old wine, and a very correct one.Decanter | 97 DECRh?ne lovers were out in full force on this night. Sadly, I only got to taste a handful of the wines being passed around. Still, these were four of the greatest wines I have ever tasted. Where to start? Beaucastel’s Hommage a Jacques Perrin is one of my very favorite wines. The 1989 was absolutely singing, with seemingly endless layers of silky-textured fruit.Vinous Media | 97 VM

Among the most saturated in color of all the 2005 Pomerols (which is saying something), this wine has a spectacular nose of licorice, mulberry, blackberry and sweet blue fruits. The new oak is completely hidden, the wine full-bodied, multi-layered and just stunning. The purity, richness and skyscraper-like mouthfeel are incredible. Give it another 5-10 years of cellaring and drink it over the following 30+ years.Robert Parker | 100 RPThe 2005 L’Eglise-Clinet soars out of the glass with captivating aromatics. Inky dark fruit, graphite, lavender, licorice, rose petal and spice captive the senses. In the glass, the 2005 is outrageously beautiful, with layers of inky dark fruit that continue to open, seemingly with no end. Floral notes and redder tonalities of fruit develop with time in the glass. L’Eglise-Clinet is another wine in this tasting that just got better and better with time. It is an epic Pomerol that evokes so many memories of tasting at the château with late proprietor Denis Durantou. Well-stored bottles will prove to be nearly immortal.Antonio Galloni | 99 AGRight from the first nose you find yourself melting into the glass. Layers of complex aromatics prevent you from taking a sip too soon, just sit and enjoy the white truffles, black cherries, tobacco, menthol and liquorice root. These notes continue into the palate, and overall this wine has a huge caressing persistency. The tannins are still holding you tight, very much in control but unobtrusively so. This is the first vintage made with young vines planted in 2001, at 8,000 vines per hectare over 1.5ha, with a pH of 3.6. Drinking Window 2018 - 2038Decanter | 98 DECDark ruby in color. Fabulous aromas of blackberry, tobacco, black olive and brown sugar follow through to a full body, with incredibly velvety tannins that go on and on and caress the palate for minutes. Shows class and complexity. Stunning. The greatest young wine ever from this producer. Best after 2016. 1,375 cases made.Wine Spectator | 98 WSThis is an elegant wine with wonderful length and beauty. Full yet reserved, showing loads of complexity. This is just starting to show its colors, but still needs at least eight years. Don’t touch this until 2018. Please be patient with this one. 85% Merlot and 15% Cabernet Franc.James Suckling | 97 JS

A brilliant wine that stands out as one of the high points of the vintage, the 2009 Montrose unwinds in the glass with a rich and incipiently complex bouquet of dark berries, cigar wrapper and loamy soil, framed by a deftly judged touch of new oak. Full-bodied, broad and enveloping, it’s a velvety, layered and impressively dynamic wine that’s deep and concentrated, exhibiting terrific balance and a long, resonant finish. While it is still five or six years away from showing all its cards, I have drunk this benchmark for contemporary Montrose with immense pleasure three times this year. In style, it’s hard to find an obvious comparison (and I have drunk Montrose back to 1895), but I would be inclined to invoke a fresher, more complete and more powerful version of the estate’s very successful 2003.Robert Parker Wine Advocate | 100 RPFor the very ripe vintage this has a herbal and wet earth nose that’s very cool. Then on the palate there’s a ton of ripe cassis, polished fine tannins and a tremendous freshness powering the very long dry finish. One of the stars of the vintage that’s just beginning to enter its best form. This is normally a perfect wine but perhaps not a perfect bottle? Drink or hold. (Horizontal Tasting, London, 2019).James Suckling | 98 JSThe 2009 Montrose has a taut, brilliantly defined bouquet with intense black fruit laced with crushed stone, forest floor, crushed rose petals and a touch of slate. Magnificent. The palate is medium-bodied with firm tannin, good depth and grip, plenty of graphite locked in here with a bravura finish that indicates that this Saint-Estèphe is in for the long-haul. It may well deserve a higher score as it evolves in bottle. Everything you wish for in a Montrose. Tasted blind at Farr Vintners’ 2009 Bordeaux tasting.Vinous Media | 98+ VMA brilliant Montrose, and a great window into what St Estèphe can deliver. This is fresh and concentrated, with ripe cassis fruits, sweet vanilla bean and black pepper spice notes alongside robust tannins, 1% Petit Verdot completes the blend. Jean-Bernard Delmas was estate director for this wine, and is making the most of the complex soils that are gravel-dominant towards the river, with pockets of sand over clay and limestone where the Merlots tend to be planted. Starting to feel ready to drink, but is going nowhere in a hurry. Drinking Window 2020 - 2042.Decanter | 97 DECA bit of a brute, with a very chewy bittersweet ganache, tobacco and roasted fig core splayed open right now by a dagger of roasted apple wood, allspice and cedar. Long and dense through the finish, with a strong singed iron edge. The stuffing is certainly there, but this will take a while to come together as it’s running unbridled right now. Proves you can still get classic old-school Bordeaux. Best from 2020 through 2040. 17,000 cases made.Wine Spectator | 97 WSEnormous tannins, dominant black fruit and a solid, dense structure. The wine, packed with dark fruits, dry tannins, very firm in character. With its huge tannins as well as fruit, this is a wine that really needs many years of aging.Wine Enthusiast | 96 WE(Château Montrose) For lovers of old school claret, the 2009 Montrose is your wine! Jean Delmas has eschewed every modern accoutrement in this traditionally-styled, broad-shouldered and very structured Montrose, and I am hard-pressed to think of any vintage since the legendary wines of the 1920s that have emerged from this property with this kind of potential. The bouquet is deep, reticent and bottomless, as it offers up scents of cassis, black cherries, tobacco leaf, cigar ash, a very complex base of gravelly soil tones and a bit of cedary wood. On the palate the wine is deep, full-bodied and powerful in a very classic way (in comparison to the caricature of a wine at Cos this year), with a rock solid core of fruit, very firm, but ripe and well-integrated tannins, tangy acids and a very, very long, focused and soil-driven finish. This is the real deal in 2009 and clearly one of the wines of the vintage. (Drink between 2025-2075)John Gilman | 93-95 JG