The Chateauneuf du Pape of Domaine Henri Bonneau, particularly the legendary Reserve des Celestins, are not only phenomenally complex, superbly rich, and capable of decades of development, they are also endowed with that rare and magical sense of extra dimension only found in the greatest wines.
 
Henri was the 12^th generation of his family to make wine, dating back to 1667, and his methods today are more similar to winemaking in the 17^th century than modern methods. Since his first vintage in 1956, Henri did no destemming, used whole clusters and fermented for three weeks in concrete tanks with frequent pumping over for gentle extraction. The wine is then aged in a variety of different barrels and casks depending on the particular wine’s structure. None of these barrels is ever less than 10 years old. Since 2016, Henri’s son Marcel has taken over the winemaking and has so far continued to make wine exactly as his father did – why change the perfect formula?!
 
Domaine Henri Bonneau’s range of Chateauneuf du Pape is produced mostly from Grenache, which makes up around 90% of his vines and subsequently, 90% of the bottled wine. The balance is Syrah, Mourvedre, Counoise and Vaccarese. Just like at Chateau Rayas, the grapes are harvested as late as possible, for ultimate ripeness and complexity. Grapes are sourced mainly from the domaine’s holdings in the famous plateau of ‘La Crau.’ Vines are an average of 30 years old – Bonneau does not like the fruit produced by vines of more than 50 years, but yields are of course extremely low, aiding the wines’ fantastic concentration.
 
Wines are only bottled when they are deemed to be ready, which may simply be how long it takes for all the sugar from a great vintage to ferment, or there may be other factors, but the wines are more or less left alone to develop, once in barrel, and only racked once a year and tasted occasionally.
 
If the vintage is determined to be great, two wines are produced – the flagship Reserve des Celestins and Cuvee Marie Beurrier, roughly based on terroir and the wine’s character. Celestins is usually sourced entirely from La Crau, whilst Marie Beurrier, which is always a more elegant wine, tends to come from more limestone and sandy soils of Couthezon, to the northeast of the appellation.