The recently released 1999 Châteauneuf du Pape Hommage à Jacques Perrin is closed and less expressive than the 2000, and perhaps more elegant and less weighty. Nevertheless, it is an enormously endowed effort revealing notes of licorice, blackberry and cherry fruit, melted asphalt, tapenade, truffles, and smoke. Chewy, with more minerality than most vintages of this wine possess, it requires a minimum of 6-8 years of cellaring. It should last 35-40 years. (RP)

Full ruby. Knockout nose of black raspberry, roasted nuts, road tar, licorice, leather and game; comes across as riper and more roasted than the regular cuvee Fat, dense and superconcentrated, with extraordinary precision of flavor and tactile strength. Has the firm backbone to support its compelling flesh. Very long, slow-mounting finish throws off notes of licorice, game, tar and brown spices. This will go on for decades. I may have marginally underrated this wine a year ago. This is consistently one of the great wines of Southern France. (ST) 96+

The 1999 vintage of Hommage à Jacques Perrin is a classic in the making and a wine I prefer far above its more highly-praised older sibling. The octane here is 13.5 percent and the wine offers up a deep and youthful bouquet of dark berries, cassis, peppercorn, cigar smoke, hung game, tree bark, dark soil and a bit of new leather in the upper register. On the palate the wine is deep, full-bodied and still quite youthfully reserved in profile, with a rock solid core, ripe, moderate tannins and impressive length and grip on the well-balanced and promising finish. This is still a young wine and needs more bottle age, but it will be excellent.