2013 Châteauneuf-du-Pape Cuvée des Cadettes Ch La Nerthe

The top cuvée is the 2013 Châteauneuf du Pape Cuvée des Cadettes, and where the traditional cuvée sees a more classic vinification and élevage, this cuvée is brought up almost all in small barrels. It's another medium- bodied, nicely structured and fresh wine that offers notes of sweet oak, cassis, licorice, graphite and caramelized meats. Still backwards, tight and a touch narrow on the palate, it too needs 2-3 years of cellaring and will have 15 years of longevity.

Deep ruby. Smoky, oak-spiced cherry, dark berries and vanilla bean on the deeply perfumed nose. Lush and open-knit, offering palate-coating blackberry and cherry-vanilla flavors enlivened by a hint of cracked pepper. A suave floral note emerges slowly on the long, sweet finish, which features velvety tannins and repeating oakiness. The lumber is making itself known here right now, but past experience with this bottling suggests to me that it will resolve itself with some cellar time.

Purists will no doubt object to this wine's fine patina of sophisticated, cedery oak, but there's plenty of high-quality fruit To back it up. Incorporating unusual proportions of 44% Grenache, 33% Mouvedre and 23% Syrah, the fruit is ripe and lush, Velvety-supple and medium to full in weight, without any sense of heaviness. Drink 2020-2030.

Purists will no doubt object to this wine's fine patina of sophisticated, cedery oak, but there's plenty of high-quality fruit To back it up. Incorporating unusual proportions of 44% Grenache, 33% Mouvedre and 23% Syrah, the fruit is ripe and lush, Velvety-supple and medium to full in weight, without any sense of heaviness. Drink 2020-2030.

Selected from La Nerthe's oldest vines, 85 to 100 years old, this is a blend of grenache, mourvedre and syrah cofermented without added yeasts in barrel and aged in new oak for a year. Right now, that wood treatment gives the wine a cedary, sappy scent, but the fruit comes up after a few hours in a decanter, pristine in its fresh florality and red- berried juiciness. Then the cedar scents read more as forest floor, adding depth and breadth to the wine. This should continue to develop well in the cellar for a decade or more.

A flashy style, with an obvious mocha and melted licorice frame around a core of ripe, succulent plum and blackberry fruit flavors. The fruit and spice notes meld nicely through the rounded finish, leaving a long echo of opulence. Has the depth to cellar, but the fruit is there for the taking now. For fans of the style. Drink now through 2025.-J.M.