2016 Xavier Vignon Cuvee Anonyme Chateauneuf-du-Pape 750 ml

Drawn from the miracle 2016 vintage that featured an endless series of warm summer days punctuated by chilly nights, super-enologist Xavier Vignon told us the 2016 growing season was the most extraordinary of his career. Wine Spectator and Wine Advocate thought much the same, rating the harvest 99- and 98-points respectively, the highest in history. 

95 points from Parker’s Wine Advocate. Big, bold, tightly muscled, packed with black fruit compote, yet firmly buttressed by a small berry backbone that argues equally for short-term consumption… but perhaps more powerfully for 10-15 years of cellar slumber. Just 600 bottles. Sorry in advance.

In the fall of 2008, Robert Parker published a Rhône Valley vintage report that sent shockwaves around the collector world. Parker, who had single-handedly catapulted the top estates in Châteauneuf-du-Pape to the top of the international scoreboard with a litany of 100-point reviews, let loose like never before—calling the class of 2007 the greatest in his 30 years of reporting.

Then one morning, wolfing down bacon and eggs as we scoured the pages of Wine Advocate Issue #191, we came upon Parker’s captivating description of the new releases from a little known enologist. His name was Xavier Vignon.

Parker explained that young Vignon, “the brain trust” and his associates, (one of whom turned out to be Philippe Cambie) were the enological forces behind numerous Southern Rhône elites—beneficiaries of the 98-100-point praises of ‘07.

But while Cambie favored an ultra-concentrated, hedonistic style of Châteauneuf-du-Pape, Vignon’s artistry lay in taming of lavish ancient-vine components into exquisitely honed blends—in great vintages like 2007, Châteauneuf-du-Papes that married wild berry intensity with riveting low-pH tension.

We made our first visit to chez Vignon three months later. It would prove to be one of the more educational evenings of our career on the wine trail.

Over shaved black truffles on toasted pain de campagne lathered with Tuscan olive oil, sprinkled with sea salt and cracked black pepper, Vignon led us through a dizzying lineup of the components of his 95+-point Châteauneuf-du-Pape Anonyme. He explained that 2007 was indeed a rare growing season, featuring an endless series of warm, sun-drenched days, before the mercury plummeted to the low 60s. This dramatic diurnal temperature shift slowed down the maturation cycle, making for a small-berry harvest of extreme concentration, but without a note of desiccation.

We visited Xavier again in the winter of 2011, but by then, Vignon was no stranger to international collectors. Thanks to Parker, that cat was out of the bag. But despite Xavier’s celebrity, he greeted us just as he did two years before with another dazzling lineup of young wines, this time from a vintage that many believed to be the greatest ever: 2010. That is… until six years later, and the release of the phenomenal 2016s.

For those of you who are still holding back-vintage (2007, 2009, 2010 and 2012) Anonymes in your cellar, it’s time to carve out a bin for what Xavier Vignon—like nearly all of the greatest names of the appellation—believes to be the greatest vintage of his now-storied career. Drawn from another warm summer, but each day punctuated by a chilly night, the 2016 is much like the 2010… on steroids.

The wine is big, bold, tightly-muscled, and packed with black fruit compote, while still buttressed by the textbook backbone that argues for short-term consumption, but perhaps more powerfully for 10-15 years of cellar slumber. 95 from Parker’s Wine Advocate. 95+ from Parker’s one-time protégé, Jeb Dunnuck.