Winemaker Notes
The wine's deep color is underscored by plummy hues. A complex nose shows deep, fruity aromas with hints of licorice and roasted coffee. Endowed with a dense and silky tannic structure, this is a full, fleshy wine that provides an ample and generous palate. Its lasting finish speaks of considerable ageing potential.
Pairs well with fine meats, roasted beef, water games, truffles, 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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Jeb Dunnuck
The 2017 Côte Rôtie La Landonne is a candidate for the wine of the vintage and offers everything you could want from Côte Rôtie. Revealing a deep purple color as well as a gorgeous perfume of black raspberries, blackberries, toasted spice, violets, and spring flowers, it hits the palate with full-bodied richness, no hard edges, and ample yet sweet tannins. This remarkable effort has loads of richness and intensity yet stays weightless and elegant. As I wrote in the barrel reviews, it's atypically charming and forward, yet it's going to nevertheless cruise in cool cellars for upwards of two decades given its balance.
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Wine Spectator
Very well-built, with sleek and clearly defined cassis and blackberry fruit racing along, supported by a smoldering cast iron note and flanked by dark tobacco and fresh bay leaf hints. The long, mouthwatering finish features a white pepper echo swirling around as the fruit and minerality meld. Best from 2022 through 2040.
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Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
Bottled just two weeks prior to my visit, the 2017 Cote Rotie La Landonne shows more raspberry and blueberry fruit than most La Landonnes, adding those delectable nuances to more typical mocha and roasted meat notes. Medium to full-bodied, it's lush, creamy and long, with up to two decades of aging potential. It's complete and elegant without being showy, just lovely stuff. Tasted twice (once blind), with consistent notes.
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Decanter
Only made in top years, the first vintage of this wine was 1997. It's fermented in concrete then aged for 16 months in new or 1-year-old barriques. The 2017 is dark, spicy and brooding, with star-anise notes running through the damson and berry fruit. The palate is full-bodied, with a slight sweetness to the fruit, hefty ripe tannins and considerable cola oak. It's concentrated, ripe, intense and structured, with a long, fresh and spicy finish.
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James Suckling
Dark stones, graphite, sarsaparilla and black pepper, as well as a swathe of attractive spices and red plums. Black cherries, too. The palate has a very sleek and muscular feel with a smoothly delivered build of tannin and a spicy, elegant edge. 100% syrah. Try from 2025.
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.