2022 Crous St Martin Chateauneuf du Pape 750 ml

Harry Bosmans is one of the southern Rhône's most connected insiders—a specialist who's spent decades building relationships with the region's best growers, the kind of person who knows where the great fruit is before anyone else does. Eric Bonnet's family has been farming the northeast corner of the Châteauneuf-du-Pape appellation for three generations, working 120 acres of vines in terrain that the appellation's top estates would recognize immediately. A few years ago, the two of them teamed up to do something the southern Rhône doesn't do often enough: make a genuinely world-class Châteauneuf and price it like it's meant to be drunk.

The winery's name is a small piece of local history. In 1879, monks erected a stone cross—crous in the Provençal dialect—at the edge of the estate to mark the road into Châteauneuf-du-Pape. The wine honors that marker and that year. It's a nice touch for a bottle that already has plenty going for it.

The fruit comes from Les Bédines, a north-facing site with sandy safre soils and the smooth quartzite galets the appellation is famous for—stones that soak up heat during the day and release it slowly overnight, giving the fruit the depth and persistence you want in serious Châteauneuf. The blend is 80% Grenache with 10% each of Syrah and Mourvèdre, harvested variety by variety at peak ripeness. The Grenache goes into stainless to keep it fresh; the Syrah and Mourvèdre spend 15 months in seasoned oak. Everything goes to bottle unfined and unfiltered.

The 2022 vintage was exceptional across the southern Rhône—warm and even, producing concentrated fruit with real structure and balance. It's the kind of year that rewards a well-farmed site and a patient winemaker, and Bosmans and Bonnet delivered. In the glass: black plum, cassis, wild thyme, truffle, and dried earth, with that stony, saline finish that great Châteauneuf always delivers.