Winemaker Notes
Deep dark color with mauve tints. Spices, black fruits and delicate oak aromas. A dense, expressive and intense nose. A tannic and racy wine. Aromas of prunes, blackberry and vanilla. Powerful, concentrated and structured palate. A wine from a tannic and muscular vintage due to the hot climate. Solid tannins, well rounded by long oak ageing.
Pair with game, red meat and cheese.
Professional Ratings
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Wine Spectator
A dark, thick, blockbuster style, with layers of sweet tapenade, steeped cherry, espresso, lavender paste and chewy earth that unfurl. Rich and smoky, showing decadent lashings of oak toast and charred mesquite. Bay leaf and white pepper add an appealing flash of freshness. Iron-edged tannins are firm yet not chunky, offering a refined feeling on the substantial finish. Syrah and Viognier.
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Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
Somber and darker in profile than the Brune et Blonde, the 2021 Côte-Rôtie Château d'Ampuis has turned out very well in bottle, revealing aromas of smoke, oak, toast, spices and baked dark berries intertwined with notes of iris. Medium- to full-bodied, structured and concentrated, it offers a firm core of fruit and a solid chassis of tannins, concluding with a long, mineral finish.
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Jeb Dunnuck
A solid step up, the 2021 Côte Rôtie Château D'Ampuis offers ripe red and black fruits, bacon fat, flowers, and violets. Medium-bodied and nicely concentrated, it has ripe tannins, a silky texture, and no hard edges. Based on 93% Syrah and 7% Viognier and aged all in new French oak for 38 months, this beautiful effort will evolve for 15+ years. Drink 2025-2040.
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Vinous
After last year’s showing from barrel was inconclusive, the bottled version of the 2021 Côte-Rôtie Château d'Ampuis fares much better. Pencil shaving, fresh violet, red plum, cedar and an espresso shot frame its complex aromatic profile. Less bold and concentrated compared to the preceding vintages, the 2021 feels like taking a time capsule back into the 1980s, with its lean, taut stature, firm acidic backbone and just ripe fruit. A long, refined finish wraps it up. This was vinified with roughly 15% whole clusters.
The Guigal domain was founded in 1946 by Etienne Guigal in the ancient village of Ampuis, home of the wines of the Côte-Rôtie. In these vineyards that are over 2400 years old, you can still see the small terraced walls characteristic of the Roman period. Etienne Guigal arrived in this region in 1923 at the age of 14. He made wine for over 67 vintages and, at the beginning of his career, participated in the development of the Vidal-Fleury establishment.
Despite his young age, Marcel Guigal took over from his father in 1961 when the latter was victim to a brutal illness rendering him blind. Marcel's hard work and perseverance enabled the Guigals to buy out Vidal-Fleury in 1984, although the establishment retains its own identity and commercial autonomy. In 2000, the Guigals purchased the Jean-Louis Grippat estate in Saint-Joseph and Hermitage, as well as the Domaine de Vallouit in Côte-Rôtie, Hermitage, Saint-Joseph and Crozes-Hermitage.
In the cellars of the Guigal estate in Ampuis, the northern appellations of the Rhône Valley are produced and aged. These are the appellations of Côte-Rôtie, Condrieu, Hermitage, Saint-Joseph and Crozes-Hermitage. The great appellations of the Southern Rhône, Chateauneuf-du-Pape, Gigondas, Tavel and Côtes-du-Rhône, are also aged in the Ampuis cellars.
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.