Lastly, the 2022 Châteauneuf Du Pape Hommage A Jacques Perrin is another 2022 that has some resemblance to this estate’s 2009. It just screams Mourvèdre with its wild aromatics of bloody red and blue fruits, herbes de Provence, rare meat, and peppery, spicy nuances. These all carry to a full-bodied yet still balanced, elegant 2022 that stays focused and precise on the palate, with building tannins and a salty finish that makes you salivate. I know there's a tendency to hide these away and think that they're never ready to drink, but they offer incredible pleasure with just short-term cellaring, and this will be no exception.

The 2022 Hommage à Jacques Perrin from Château de Beaucastel is a spectacular and immense wine, representing a great evolution of this cuvée toward increased finesse and precision over the years. It exhibits a complex, elegant bouquet of mulberries, lilac, smoke, spices, wild strawberries and dark cherries. Full-bodied, concentrated and dense, it delivers multidimensional depth at its core, controlled power and structured but velvety tannins with precise, seamless texture, culminating in a long, mineral, penetrating finish. This blend of 60% Mourvèdre, 20% Grenache, 10% Syrah and 10% Counoise is a testament to its perfect adaptation to climate change. It is a must-have for collectors and enthusiasts.

Notes of cooked blueberries and liquorice on the nose. This has great palate weight and density, it’s so savoury. The tannins are really searching, and the acidity is driving. A big tannic seat, and a lovely sense of vibrancy and freshness to the fruit. This has enormous presence, it's a big, powerful, dense vintage of Hommage that will age for a very long time. Around 60% of the blend comes from old-vine Mourvèdre from the Courrieux vineyard. Grapes are destemmed, fermented in tronconic wooden vats using natural yeasts after a brief cold maceration, with regular punching down.

The stunning 2022 Châteauneuf-du-Pape Hommage à Jacques Perrin comes alive with precise notes of sandalwood, licorice, dried herbs, crushed violets, blackberry jam and wild strawberry. Peppery subtleties add further complexity. Combining mind-boggling intensity with impressive verticality, the full-bodied 2022 is one of the wines of the vintage. Closing with a refined finish that lingers for over two minutes, readers should ideally wait to approach this outstanding Hommage until at least 2032.

Such a great wine, powerfully concentrated, laced through with rosemary, cut dried herbs, blackberry, liqourice, crushed rocks, cumin, underbrush, all overlaid with a more delicate raspberry leaf fragrance. This was a hot dry year, and you can find plenty of grilled spice notes, even heading as far as incense, but this hugs the palate and has so much grip through the finish. 4ha of vines, César Perrin winemaker.

Cask sample. Just wow on the nose – such intense dark fruits, pastille fruits and sweet spice, tobacco, meat and blackcurrant. The attack is dense and deeply concentrated, with sweet pastille fruit, such suave tannins, incredible concentration and ripe, sweet, layered liquorice, mulberry, cassis and leather, as well as black tea, lavender and garrigue. There is an underpinning salinity beneath that lifts the finish. Hugely dense and concentrated. Superb. (AC)