2016 Rotem & Mounir Saouma Chateauneuf-du-Pape ‘Omnia’ Rhone

“Sublime,” gushed Wine Spectator in a starring 97-point review, boosting the 2016 Rotem & Mounir Saouma Châteauneuf-du-Pape Omnia onto their 2019 Top 100 list. The unique, mouthwatering descriptors—“layers of cherry puree, steeped plum and warmed raspberry coulis fruit flavors, melded with rooibos tea, bergamot, incense and jasmine”—got our attention right away.

Our Rhône spidey sense tingling around this bottle grew even stronger the more we learned about the tiny estate. Winemaker Mounir Saouma provides scant allocations to the U.S., yet has been called “one of the most original thinkers working in French fine wine today” by Decanter. Wine Spectator has declared Saouma’s wines “beautiful, flowing, sublime, mineral- and fruit-laden expressions of both place and vigneron.”

A trip to Southern Rhône to taste the 2016 Omnia—bold but elegant on the palate, with mineral-tinged tannins and gorgeous aromatics—substantiated everything we had heard. Skirmishes ensued as we fought to out-negotiate various other retailers over the few cases that make it across the Atlantic. “Are you going to run this?” demanded the supplier on multiple occasions while we prepared this offer and other sellers begged for a piece.

Today, it’s out at last: one of our best-ever Châteauneuf-du-Pape finds, offered at a historically low price for a 97-point Châteauneuf-du-Pape from the incredible 2016 vintage: This is a Goliath of a wine from a David-sized estate.

On our trek down the Rhône Valley wine route this past fall, we walked with Mounir Saouma through the stone-riddled vineyards of his first acquisition in Châteauneuf-du-Pape: five sunny acres in Pignan. Pristine and bordered by leafy tree rows today, it was cheap and in poor condition when he bought it.

He re-drained and replanted the plot, which has since become a super-achiever, raked by the cool Mistral, guaranteeing maturity while maintaining exquisite freshness. Grapes from this vineyard, as well as eight others across all five villages of the appellation, contribute to the profoundly multifaceted Omnia—Latin for “all.”

In the cellar, Mounir seeks “extreme purity,” influenced by Rhône stalwarts like Rayas (a neighbor of one of his plots) and Burgundy, where he first established a micro-négociant in the 1990s. His élevages sometimes last as long as 60 months, leaving the wines unsulphured and unracked on the lees. Omnia, packed with the vibrancy and beautiful rusticity of the now-legendary 2016 vintage, saw its tannins gently unwind with long aging in a mix of foudres, cement, and 500-liter barrels.

Saouma often jokes that he is a winemaker out of his own time, that his vinicultural predilections would put him in the 19th century. Suave and graceful, yet possessed of deep, earthy power, this Omnia already tastes like a beautiful and rare relic of the past.

• Fruit Intensity
• Oak Intensity
• Body
• Acidity
• Tannin

• ABV 14.50%
• 1 hour
• Now – 2035
• 80% Grenache10% Mourvèdre10% Syrah
• Serving temperature – 60°
• Cork