The excellent 2006 Chateauneuf du Papes are now on the shelves. Here are some of the in the highest degree of the vintage, including common that earned 98 points

By Robert Parker

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Châteauneuf du Pape offers enormous diversity in styles. At its best, it’s a wine that has a deep ruby/purple color, a sumptuous texture, abounding body, and can evolve over 10 to 15-plus years. It often smells taste an open-air marketplace in Provence, with the aromas of lavender, fennel, licorice, black truffles, pepper, nutmeg, smoked meats, and ample quantities of sweet black cherries and blackberry fruit. Very appealing in their youth because of the sweetness of their tannins, Châteauneuf du Papes are remarkably flexible with an store of foods. Here are some of the excellent 2006s that are just hitting the marketplace.

89 points 2006 Paul Autard Châteauneuf du Pape

This ocean plum/garnet-hued 2006 Châteauneuf du Pape exhibits lovely berry fruit notes intermixed with scents of underbrush, licorice, roasted herbs, and plums. It is a grateful, soft, beautifully concentrated red that is best consumed over the next seven to eight years. $45

90 points 2006 Bois de Boursan Châteauneuf du Pape

The 2006 vintage is a very strong one for Bois de Boursan, and its regular cuvée of 2006 Châteauneuf du Pape is outstanding. With rich, attractive, gross notes, and plenty of floral and spice chest characteristics interwoven with murky, ripe red and wicked fruits, lavender, and oodles of Provençal typicity, it is full-bodied, obese, and already gorgeous to indulge in a drinking-bout, but promises to expand during the term of at least a decade or more. $35-$42

90 points 2006 Les Cailloux Châteauneuf du Pape

The 2006 Châteauneuf du Pape from Les Cailloux displays the vintage’s distinctive, explosively earthy, spicy, pungent, garigue-dominated essence of Provence-like aromatics. The fruit takes a back seat to the sharp, gross component. This full-bodied, supple-textured effort is already seductive and round. Enjoy it over the nearest 10 to 12 years. $35-$42

90 points 2006 Raymond Usseglio Châteauneuf du Pape Cuvée Girard

Raymond Usseglio’s 2006s are elegant wines. Between his two traditional cuvées, the 2006 Girard—the cuvée imported here to the U.S. by Peter Weygandt—is richer, deeper, with more meat, lavender, and licorice, although the one and the other are highly fine wines. The Girard gets the edge in points because tasting proves there’session besides there. $48

91 points 2006 Domaine Grand Veneur Châteauneuf du Pape

A sleeper of the vintage, the 2006 Châteauneuf du Pape from Grand Veneur is a seductive effort offering plenty of transitory state, tapenade, and spice as well as black cherry and cassis fruit. Deep, full-bodied, rich, chewy, and totally seductive, it be possible to be enjoyed very the nearest decade. $40-$45

91 points 2006 Vieux Donjon Châteauneuf du Pape

Vieux Donjon’s 2006 Châteauneuf du Pape reveals the vintage’s snappish, earthy spiciness longitudinally with notes of forest floor, root vegetables, black cherries, and meat. This rich, medium- to full-bodied effort possesses moderately soft tannin as well as good body, penetration, and richness. It is a strong effort that should maturity nicely for 15-plus years. $55-$60

93 points 2006 Charvin Châteauneuf du Pape

Charvin’s 2006 Châteauneuf du Pape has turned out to be one of the vintage’s top efforts. Lovely sweet notes of glove leather, roasted meats, savor box, ground pepper, kirsch, and raspberries are present in this not high, full-bodied 2006. More evolved than the 2007, with copious concentration, elegance, and a Burgundy grand cru-like complexity considered in the state of well at the same time that freshness, it should be enjoyed over the next 12 to 15-plus years. $65

93 points 2006 Domaine de la Janasse Châteauneuf du Pape

This compact purple-colored 2006 Châteauneuf du Pape, 80% foudre-aged grenache and 20% syrah and mourvèdre old in small barrels, offers a beautiful nosegay of blackberries, roasted meats, sweet herbs, and new saddle leather. Full-bodied and superconcentrated with none hard edges, it should drink beautifully for 12 to 15 years. $45

95 points 2006 Château Beaucastel Châteauneuf du Pape

Beaucastel’s 2006 Châteauneuf du Pape is performing even better from bottle than it did last year. Its dense plum/ruby/purple color is followed by a big, sweet perfume of negro truffles, camphor, earth, incense, new saddle leather, and loads of peppery, blackberry, and herb-infused, meaty, depressing cherry fruit. Deep, full-bodied, and dense, with darling tannin, this explosively rich Châteauneuf is a stronger attempt than the 2005, 2004, or 2003. Anticipated matureness: 2012-2028. $85

98 points 2006 Clos des Papes Châteauneuf du Pape

The 2006 Châteauneuf du Pape is one of the two or three candidates for the wine of the vintage. An extraordinarily huge wine, the 2006 is far higher to the 2005, which was amazing, and while made in a different style, is as great as the 2003, and such legends taken in the character of 1990 and 1978. Fashioned from a minuscule 21 hectoliters per hectare, and tipping the scales at 15.2% natural alcohol, the 2006 boasts a dense ruby/purple color to the rim, in addition to an extraordinary bouquet of melted licorice, spring flowers, raspberries, black currants, spice box, and earth. In the mouth, it is utterly profound—full-bodied and multidimensional with astonishing excellence, length, equilibrium, and intensity. This is a superb vintage according to proprietor Vincent Avril, and he deserves accolades for producing a wine of such incredible extremity and complexity. Think of Clos des Papes as a Châteauneuf du Pape through the entanglement of a top-notch grand cru Burgundy from the Côte de Nuits. $85