CDP Cuvée de la Reine des Bois, Domaine de la Mordorée 1998

Absolutely perfect was the 1998 Domaine de la Mordorée Châteauneuf du Pape Cuvée de la Reine des Bois. This wine was fabulous in its youth and has gotten stronger and stronger over the last 18 years. It was absolutely magnificent at this tasting and certainly, to me, maybe the wine of the day.

This wine went through a long closed period. It was sensational to drink a year or two after bottling, then the wood tannins in the wine's structure took over. It remained in that state until about two years ago, when it began to slightly open up, and now it seems to be coming into full form. It still has a good 10 years of upside, and potentially 20 more years of drinkability. Still dense ruby/purple, with notes of blueberry liqueur intermixed with graphite, smoke, crushed rock, and white flowers, the wine is full-bodied, beautifully pure, and all evidence of any barrique aging has been completely assimilated into the wine's fruit and character. This is a beauty that is just now living up to its full potential. Bravo!

This opaque purple-coloured effort was among the most backward wines in the tasting. Although subdued aromatically, it is enormously endowed, concentrated, and fabulous in the mouth. With high tannin as well as extraordinary blackberry and cassis fruit mixed with minerals and subtle new oak, it cuts a huge swath across the palate, but is not heavy. Give it another 3-4 years of cellaring and drink it over the following three decades. It is a quasi-modern-styled Châteauneuf du Pape, but clearly has not lost its typicity.