The 2020 Domaine du Pegau Cuvée Réservée is a fantastic late release from one of Châteauneuf-du-Pape's benchmark traditional producers. Returning to market with additional bottle age already built in, this is exactly the kind of thing we love to find, especially from a wine as age-worthy as Pegau, which always needs extra time. While the domaine produces rarer, more prestigious bottlings, Cuvée Réservée is the flagship: powerful, traditional, deeply complex, and unmistakably Southern Rhône. Grenache dominates the blend, with Syrah and Mourvèdre playing important supporting roles alongside smaller amounts of the other permitted varieties, all grown on the estate’s mix of clay, limestone, sand, and iron-rich soils. Grapes are harvested by hand and traditionally fermented with whole clusters and indigenous yeasts in concrete vats before the wine spends roughly two years aging in large old foudres. The 2020 vintage produced perfectly ripe, concentrated Châteauneuf with excellent balance, and Pegau’s Cuvée Réservée shows that combination especially well, with layers of dark cherry, blackberry, garrigue, pepper, leather and spice wrapped around a broad, savory palate and firm but polished structure. It has plenty of power, but also freshness and complexity, and the extra time in the bottle from this late release is a nice bonus. This is a great example of Pegau that is lovely now but only going to get better with more age and a fantastic buy at this low pricing!