2015 Chateauneuf du Pape Les Safres

A big step up over the base cuvée, the deeper, more purple-hued 2015 Châteauneuf du Pape Les Safres offers a downright smorgasbord of Provençal herbs, spices, wild strawberries, garrigue, and black cherry aromas and flavors. About as seamless and sexy as they come, with full-bodied richness and building tannin, as well as incredible purity, I just hope it shows this well from bottle!<br><br>The Vacheron family, along with winemaker Bruno Gaspard and assistant Aude Perche, as well as superstar Oenologist Philippe Cambie, continue to keep Domaine du Clos du Caillou one of the leading estates in Châteauneuf du Pape. These wines always show a more elegant, polished style, with plenty of fruit, yet have gorgeous Southern Rhône characters, sweet tannin and serious length. In addition, they fashion some of the most incredible Côtes du Rhônes out there. As to the vintages reviewed here, the 2014s are easily some of the wines of the vintage, showing tons of charm, incredibly sweet tannin and hard to resist characters. The 2015s are certainly a step up, but in a few cases I felt the wines were shifted too much towards the finesse-driven end of the spectrum and could have used a touch more density. Nevertheless, as the scores and notes show, these are killer wines I wish every Southern Rhône lover could try. Oct 2016, www.robertparker.com