Auction update: Bonneau for ever

Since the sad death of Henri Bonneau in March of this year, the iconic wines of his domaine have attracted interest from collectors like never before – a testament to the experience and skill of this quintessential Châteauneuf-du-Pape traditionalist.

AN EMBLEMATIC figure of Châteauneuf-du-Pape, Henri Bonneau passed away in March this year. The excellent reputation of his wines was built on a strong consistency across the vintages, as well as on his unique personality and approach to winemaking. As recent prices at auction have soared to impressive levels, we decided to take a closer look at this very special wine and its producer.

Connoisseurs will not be surprised by the simplicity of some of the most emblematic Rhône wineries, such as Henri Bonneau or neighbour Château Rayas. Indeed, their international reputation and record prices as recently seen in iDealwine auctions, don’t necessarily mean fancy facilities and snooty owners. Rayas looks more like a barn than a château, while the cellar of Henri Bonneau is a charmingly chaotic and dusty mess with a maze of small rooms full of foudres and barriques that all look as old as the cellar itself excavated beneath the village.

THE FAMILY LINE

Born in 1938, Bonneau was the 12th generation winemaker looking after a six hectare domaine, starting with the 1956 vintage. The large majority of the 13 parcels of vines at the domaine are planted of Grenache (85%), while the remainder is a mix of Mourvèdre, Counoise and Vaccarèse. Surprisingly, no Syrah was planted – Bonneau considered the grape unworthy of Châteauneuf appellation.

When people asked the winemaker how he could produce such amazing wines, he used to answer: “My secret is that I have no secret and no recipe either.” He was not so much against the concept of organic viticulture as he was against any form of administrative authority and organisation.

Yet, he was cultivating his vines with the same respect as any organic vineyard owner. Low yields, harvesting of fruits when very ripe, spontaneous fermentation in concrete tanks and no punchdowns were characteristic of his method. For ageing, he would use barrels of different sizes, which were usually between 20 and 40 years old, where the wines could lay down for periods from four up to 10 years before being bottled unfiltered.

He produced only about 25,000 bottles a year under three main cuvées: the generic Châteauneuf, Marie Beurrier and Réserve des Célestins – the latter only in the best years. The selection was never planned in advance and not parcel-specific. After a rigorous and exhaustive tasting, he would decide on the blends of each cuvée.

Rather than seeking to highlight the quality of particular parcels, he would only judge by the outcome of the tasting. He even diverted to Marie Beurrier some barrels that were supposed to become Réserve des Célestins, a 94 Parker-point wine. With the luxury of time that comes from long barrel ageing, he would decide sporadically when to release the cuvées. In 2011, for example, the Réserve des Célestins 2006 was already bottled while the cuvée Marie Beurrier was still in barrels.

His wines always display a very complex nose of intense spices and a fine silky texture. They are also very concentrated without being heavy or dominated by their tannic structure. They are often compared to wines from Domaine Lucien Barrot, another traditional Châteauneuf producer.

PRIDE AND PROFIT

Henri Bonneau was never really interested in making profits and left the market to benefit from affordable selling prices and high mark-ups. His death will have a strong impact on the prices of the wines, which should continue to rise as they have done in recent months. And what of the future? So far, nobody knows what will happen to the estate.

The auction prices of Rhône Valley wines have increased significantly in the past months, and the WineDex® Rhône, which tracks 10 vintages of the 25 most representative wines of the region, rose by 7.03% in the past 12 months. Henri Bonneau was no stranger to this growth and his sad death has made the wines particularly buoyant at auction. Recently a 1990 Cuvée Spéciale – an extremely hard-to-find wine made from very ripe fruits only in this vintage and 1998 – went under the hammer for €840 to an Austrian customer (55% higher than the iDealwine price).

All Bonneau’s wines that are coming up for auction are on the rise. The chart above shows the current auction price of most cuvées. This year we are lucky to sell many of these wines on iDealwine, where fine wine collectors and merchants from all around the world continue to bid on these rare cuvées which have the reputation of ageing for ever.