Up there among the best Gigondas I've ever reviewed, the 2018 Gigondas le Poste combines considerable complexity with incredible intensity and adds a seductive measure of suppleness without sacrificing length or focus. Violet and aniseed aromas accent plums and black cherries on the nose, while the palate is full-bodied and velvety in texture, with a long, silky finish that folds in notes of salted licorice.

Sourced from limestone soils and higher elevations than Saint Cosme's other flagship Gigondas bottlings, Le Poste offers ripe but luminescent red-plum and mulberry flavors. While concentrated, it's an intensely mineral wine lifted by sprays of salt and ore. The finish is dramatic, elongated by drapes of blackberry satin and ripe, furry tannins. At peak now through 2030, the wine is likely to hold further still.

Another sensational wine, the 2018 Gigondas Le Poste comes from a hillside parcel just up from the domaine, just to the east of the village of Gigondas. Deep ruby/purple-hued with killer notes of blackcurrants, ground pepper, violets, tobacco leaf, and obvious minerality, it's full-bodied, has a fleshy, layered, opulent texture, building tannins, and a great, great finish. It shows the more approachable style of the vintage yet still brings incredible richness and depth. It will blow you away any time over the coming 10-15 years.

Packed, with a core of steeped plum, boysenberry and blackberry confiture flavors layered nicely with violet, anise and applewood notes. Dense but vibrant throughout, with a bundle of energetic grip on the finish that melds nicely with the fruit. Deeply buried minerality lurks at the very end. This should be long-lived. Best from 2022 through 2036.

Vivid ruby. Displays vibrant, mineral-driven red and blue fruit, licorice, exotic spice and potpourri scents that show superb detail and a touch of botanical herbs. Stains the palate with sweet, incisive cherry, boysenberry, spicecake and lavender flavors that deepen quickly with air. Conveys an uncanny blend of richness and finesse and finishes wonderfully long and precise, with smoothly interwoven tannins and reverberating floral and mineral notes.