2016 Château de Beaucastel Châteauneuf-du-Pape

Community Tasting Note

Vinomane wrote:

100 Points

Tuesday, June 11, 2019 - Potential 100-point wine. The harmony and integration exceed any Chateauneuf ever tasted, including classic vintages of Beaucastel. Maybe if drunk beside the Hommage it would be downgraded to 98; we won't know for another decade-plus. Chateauneuf is a "rustic" wine in general, but not this one. And you don't even feel the 14.5% alcohol. As a bonus, it's quite possible the 2016 will never shut down, but just keep gaining complexity as time passes. Superb.

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5 comments have been posted

Comment posted by americanstorm:

8/5/2019 12:52:00 PM - I think the points given should reflect what a wine is when you taste it, not what you think it may, or may not achieve at some point in the distance future. Just my opinion.
Comment posted by Vinomane:

8/5/2019 1:45:00 PM - When tasting vins de garde (collectable wines), you are necessarily projecting the future, since these wines are made, sold, and stored entirely for FUTURE drinking. All of the world's greatest wines taste terrible on release because they need 20+ years in bottle to develop into what they were built to become. Your job as critic/collector is to make your best guess concerning just WHAT they will become.
Comment posted by americanstorm:

8/5/2019 2:08:00 PM - You can put whatever future score you think a wine will achieve in the body of the comment, but when you rate a wine 100 and then start your commentary with "potential 100 point" there is a disconnect because you obviously do not think the wine is 100 points in the here and now. I could be wrong, but I think the vast majority of people using cellar trackers rate the wines they drink on what they are when they are drinking them and if they think they will achieve a different score somewhere down the line, they put that in the body of the review. Your method, in my opinion, gives an inaccurate expectation to someone looking at the cellar tracker score a wine has and what they will actually experience if they drink that bottle today.
Comment posted by Vinomane:

9/24/2019 2:38:00 PM - I am writing for collectors and you are looking for advice on present consumption. OK, I strongly recommend this particular wine for present consumption. Since it's a 100-pointer today, go buy some and drink it up and thoroughly enjoy yourself.
Comment posted by americanstorm:

9/24/2019 5:46:00 PM - I, for the most part, only buy wines that I can cellar and I already own a bottle of this. Pretty sure I will wait a few years to drink it. But, since 100 is the highest score and indicates a perfect wine, in your opinion there is no upside to cellaring, right?