2018 Rotem and Mounir Saouma Châteauneuf-du-Pape 'Omnia'

A dreamy wine, with a plume of incense, mulled raspberry and red tea aromas curling up from the glass, followed by a very silky and refined feel to the mix of gently mulled red fruit, singed wood spice and floral notes. The perfume carries through the finish authoritatively, leaving fresh and dried fruit, sous-bois and mineral notes in its wake. A beautiful and distinctive wine.

Rotem and Mounir Saouma’s aim with Omnia is to build complexity from the diversity of their nine parcels spread out over all five of Châteauneuf’s villages. The diversity continues in the cellar, where Mounir puts the juice into an assortment of containers, from large foudres to small concrete eggs. Then he leaves the wines to do their own thing for 18 months, without interference. The result is exceptional in how it combines clarity, finesse and grace with structure and complexity. You might even mistake it for a Burgundy, given its garnet hue and the flinty reduction at first pass. But then, with air, the meatiness of the grenache emerges, rosescented and raspberry-bright. The longer it’s opened, the brighter and more complex it gets, channeling berry patches and rose gardens, herbs and stones, a constant stream of impressions passing like a high-speed slideshow of Châteauneuf.