Winemaker Notes
The wine is darkly finessed, with aromas and flavors of red and black fruits, sweet purple flowers, spice, and minerality, while the mouthfeel is velvety with delicate tannins, making it an ideal pairing for lamb confit with honey and thyme.
Professional Ratings
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Wine Spectator
Complex and multifaceted, with a chewy, ripe core of cherry and black raspberry accented with ganache, lavender paste and singed vanilla bean. Iron bolts ground everything, with polished tannins guiding the long, intense finish. Shows elegance rather than concentration, plus a beautiful texture. Syrah and Viognier. Best from 2027 through 2032. 72 cases imported.
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Vinous
The fleshy 2022 Côte-Rôtie Bassenon ushers in licorice, ripe black cherry, cured meat and iodine aromas. Medium- to full-bodied, the expressive 2022 lands on the palate with elevated flavor concentration, softly framed around gentle tannins. Closing with resonance on the savory finish.
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Jeb Dunnuck
Red, blue, and black fruits, violets, potpourri, baking chocolate, and spice all emerge from the 2022 Côte Rôtie Bassenon, a more approachable Côte Rôtie than either the Bonnivières or Viallière. Medium to full-bodied and mouth-filling, with a rich and textured profile and rounded tannins.
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.