The same blend as the Les Olivets (80% Grenache, 10% Syrah, and 10% Mourvèdre), the 2016 Châteauneuf-du-Pape Réserve is similarly inky ruby/purple-colored and gives up a more dense, serious, backward style in its blackberry, melted licorice, roasted herb, and graphite aromas and flavors. With terrific minerality, full body, sweet tannin, and beautiful purity, it's a seriously good 2016 that's going to benefit from 2-3 years of bottle age and drink nicely for 10-15.

Take incredibly ripe, sweet, fresh, black raspberries, blend them with cracked pepper, add in silk and velvet for texture and that is what you have going on here. The wine was produced blending 80% Grenache, 10% Mourvedre and 10% Syrah. Read more at:https://www.thewinecellarinsider.com/wine-tasting-note/?vintage=2016&wine=Roger%20Sabon%20Chateauneuf-du-Pape%20Reserve

Full-bodied and velvety, Sabon's 2016 Chateauneuf du Pape Reserve is a step up from the les Olivets bottling and probably represents the best value in the 2016 lineup. Tasted blind, it showcases ripe dark plum and cola but also super ripe Grenache notes of apricot and delicate hints of garrigue, then it turns rich and chewy on the long finish. It's 80% Grenache, 10% Mourvèdre and 10% Syrah, matured in a mix of foudres and oak vats. - JC

Musky notes of fur, earth and violet lend seductive perfume to ripe but pristine blackberry in this stately wine. A powerful blend of 80% Grenache, 10% Syrah and 10% Mourvèdre, it's unctuously fruity but also firmly anchored by fresh mineral tones and chewy, gripping tannins. The finish lingers on hints of coffee grinds and violet candy. - ANNA LEE C. IIJIMA

Intense, with a core of dark plum, boysenberry and fig reduction flavors that are a bit brooding in feel, while licorice snap, roasted alder and tar notes hold sway for now. Shows a terrifically racy graphite and iron spine and a long, smoldering finish, so just let this stretch out in the cellar. Best from 2020 through 2040. 336 cases imported. –JM