Winemaker Notes
The wine's deep color is underscored by plummy hues. A complex nose shows deep, fruity aromas with hints of liquorice 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.
Professional Ratings
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Jeb Dunnuck
The 2020 Côte Rôtie La Landonne is also incredibly elegant and pure, yet it brings another level of concentration and richness. Blackberries, black rasp[berries, smoked meats, violets, and floral notes all emerge from this full-bodied, rich, incredibly impressive barrel sample. It shows the pure, classic style of the vintage yet brings beautiful richness as well as seamless tannins. It's going to offer loads of pleasure any time over the coming 20 years or more.
Range: 95-97 -
Wine Enthusiast
Sappy and mineral-laden aromas weave through black plum, boysenberry, violets, lavender, and fresh vanilla, layered with savory herbs and a hint of meatiness. The palate is textured and silky, framing touches of mushroom and iodine.
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James Suckling
A very rich, suave and refined Cote-Rotie that should impress Burgundy fans as much as friends of the Rhone, and is just beginning what should be a very long life. Integrated deep black fruit aromas, silky tannins and stony minerality. Excellent potential. Matured for 18-plus months in barrel, roughly a quarter of which were new. Drinkable now, but best from 2025.
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Decanter
Juniper and warm herbal notes behind berry fruits on a fresh nose. Rounded and juicy on the palate, this is a ripe, well-shaped wine with fine tannins, a good sense of energy and true focus. A slick of ripe, fine tannin in reserve gives this some ageing potential. Fermented in open-top concrete tanks for 20 days, then matured in new and one-year-old barrels for 14 months.
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Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
The Delas parcel of this fabled vineyard is under one hectare in size, reliably yielding 22–28 hectoliters each vintage. The 2020 Cote Rotie La Landonne offers forward raspberry and herb notes underscored by hints of roasted meat. Medium to full-bodied, it's silky and long on the finish. Not a huge, blockbuster vintage, but it is one that nicely expresses the site and should be approachable young.
Range: 92-94 -
Wine & Spirits
Earthy-sweet blueberry flavors are brightened by an acidity that would make me excited to try this wine again in five years. Though the wine is suave and rich, it presents some of syrah's animal funk and floral aspects at the edges and at the end of its length. If you open it now, decant it to diminish the toasty oak in the finish. For grilled lamb.
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.