Winemaker Notes
This wine pairs wonderfully with fine meats, roasted beef, water games, truffles and spicy stews.
The bottle should be opened 1 to 3 hours before drinking. This wine needs at least 3 years cellaring before it can open up its complexity. In such case it is strongly recommended to decant before serving.
Professional Ratings
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James Suckling
This has a very impressive, swirling and aromatic nose of orange zest, fine pepper, gently meaty charcuterie notes, eastern spices and redder berry fruits. Beautifully fragrant. The palate carries impressive density, richness and ripeness, while the tannins are super fine, building neatly and supporting long, chocolate-coated dark plums licorice. Great depth and persistence. Good wine but best from 2018 and thereafter for at least a decade. 100% syrah from the C“te Brune planted on mica-schist soil.
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Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
The 2013 Côte Rôtie la Landonne is a longer term prospect that will require patience. It offers youthful, yet beautifully pure notes of black cherries, roasted herbs, licorice and distinct minerality to go with a medium to full-bodied, structured, tannic yet balanced feel on the palate. Completely destemmed and aged in 40% new French oak, I followed this bottle for multiple days and it continued to gain more and more mid-palate depth, without losing purity or freshness. Give bottles 5-6 years of cellaring and enjoy through 2038.
Rating: 94+ -
Wine Spectator
Very solid, with a loamy edge that melds slowly into the core of steeped plum and blackberry fruit, while smoldering alder, bay leaf and dark olive notes flitter throughout. Cellar for maximum effect. Best from 2018 through 2024.
Marked by an unmistakable deep purple hue and savory aromatics, Syrah makes an intense, powerful and often age-worthy red. Native to the Northern Rhône, Syrah achieves its maximum potential in the steep village of Hermitage and plays an important component in the Red Rhône Blends of the south, adding color and structure to Grenache and Mourvèdre. Syrah is the most widely planted grape of Australia and is important in California and Washington. Sommelier Secret—Such a synergy these three create together, the Grenache, Syrah, Mourvedre trio often takes on the shorthand term, “GSM.”
The cultivation of vines here began with Greek settlers who arrived in 600 BC. Its proximity to Vienne was important then and also when that city became a Roman settlement but its situation, far from the negociants of Tain, led to its decline in more modern history. However the 1990s brought with it a revival fueled by one producer, Marcel Guigal, who believed in the zone’s potential. He, along with the critic, Robert Parker, are said to be responsible for the zone’s later 20th century renaissance.
Where the Rhone River turns, there is a build up of schist rock and a remarkable angle that produces slopes to maximize the rays of the sun. Cote Rotie remains one of the steepest in viticultural France. Its varied slopes have two designations. Some are dedicated as Côte Blonde and others as Côte Brune. Syrahs coming from Côte Blonde are lighter, more floral, and ready for earlier consumption—they can also include up to 20% of the highly scented Viognier. Those from Côte Brune are more sturdy, age-worthy and are typically nearly 100% Syrah. Either way, a Cote Rotie is going to have a particularly haunting and savory perfume, expressing a more feminine side of the northern Rhone.