($150) Glass-staining ruby. Explosively perfumed bouquet of fresh red and dark berries, potpourri, incense and licorice. Completely saturates the palate with sweet raspberry and boysenberry flavors, picking up anise and lavender pastille qualities with air. For a wine with this kind of palate impact there's remarkable finesse and clarity. Red berry and floral notes echo endlessly on the long, sappy finish.

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Juicy, round and wonderfully well balanced fruit on top of a little tight tannin but still vivacious and very expressive and flirtatious. You could almost drink this now. Dry and savoury finish, refreshing mid palate. Well done! A very impressive set of wines from this producer. 60:40 Grenache:Mourvèdre.

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In 2006, only a handful of other producers in Chateauneuf du Pape hit the heights achieved by Clos St.-Jean with the following wine. The inky/ruby/purple-colored 2006 Chateauneuf du Pape Deus-Ex Machina reveals notes of graphite, roasted meats, figs, plums, blackberries, and smoked herbs. The complex aromatic fireworks are followed by a full-bodied, rich, meaty wine with gorgeous purity, depth, and length. This cuvee should age effortlessly for two decades or more. How Vincent Maurel and Philippe Cambie were able to produce such stupendous wines in 2006 is remarkable. Readers should hasten to buy this wine ASAP!

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Nearly gushes with raspberry and fig sauce notes, but the ripe, lush fruit is harnessed by a superracy graphite underpinning, which allows notes of mineral, shiso leaf, braised fig and incense to stretch out the long, supersilky finish. Has impressive length and plenty of latent concentration.

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