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Côte Rôtie Château d'Ampuis, Etienne Guigal 2005

RegionRhône
Subregion France > Rhône > Northern Rhône > Côte Rotie
ColourRed
TypeStill
Grape VarietySyrah

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Tasting Notes

If the 2006 represents a 1991-ish feminine offering, the 2005 Cote Rotie Chateau d'Ampuis is a macho, masculine-styled effort. Dense, concentrated, and powerful, with gamy black currant, spice box, bacon fat, and herb notes, this chewy, tannic, enormously promising requires 3-4 years of cellaring, and should drink well over the following two decades or more.

94/96
Robert Parker, Wine Advocate (182), April 2009

More masculine, backwards and concentrated, the 2005 Cote Rotie Chateau d'Ampuis is a full-bodied, structured effort that's just barely starting to show some secondary nuances. Giving up notions of violet, asphalt, graphite, crushed rock, bacon fat and dried rose petal, it has impeccable balance, notable concentration and a big finish. It should hit prime time in another 2 to 3 years, and evolve gracefully through 2025.

96+
Jeb Dunnuck, Wine Advocate (214), August 2014

Rock-solid, with a great core of dark plum and fig fruit woven with incense, Turkish coffee, melted licorice and mineral notes. The long finish lets the mouthwatering acidity carry it all nicely. There's impressive drive and density. Best from 2010 through 2020.

94
James Molesworth, Wine Spectator, May 2009

The fabulous 2005 Cote Rotie Chateau d'Ampuis is a resounding success. This is the first vintage where Guigal's newest acquisition, the Syrah from the Viria Vineyard (essentially a fourth single vineyard), is included in the blend. Dark ruby/purple to the rim, it boasts an extraordinary bouquet of ground pepper, creme de cassis, blackberries, coffee, bacon fat, and herbs. With outstanding concentration, huge tannin, and massive intensity as well as extract, it needs 7-8 years of cellaring, and should keep for 30-35 years. As always, a tasting at Guigal is an opportunity to receive several years' worth of wine education in one day (that's how long it takes to go through all the bottles and barrels). Marcel Guigal is obviously a brilliant businessman, but most importantly, he understands vineyards, how to get maximum quality from them, and how to make wines, at all different price levels. From his Cotes du Rhones to Cote Roties, these wines are as good as one is likely to find. When I first visited Guigal nearly thirty years ago, this was a relatively small firm. Today, his may be the most successful wine operation in France. Guigal attributes his success to hard work and never being satisfied with the status quo. He pays the highest prices of any negociant for the fruit used to fashion his Cotes du Rhone as well as other negociant wines. He has also been extraordinarily adept at buying fabulous terroirs, as evidenced by his purchase of the De Vallouit properties in Crozes-Hermitage and Hermitage as well as Grippat's top-notch vineyard holdings in St.-Joseph. Along with the late Thomas Jefferson, Guigal has always believed that white Hermitage is France's greatest white wine. With his recent acquisitions of superb vineyard sites, he is hell-bent on proving to the world that Jefferson was correct - that white Hermitage is an amazing as well as long-lived wine. In top vintages, two cuvees are produced, the regular offering (usually a blend of primarily Marsanne with a touch of Roussanne) and the luxury cuvee called Ex-Voto, which is generally 95% Marsanne and 5% Roussanne from two stunning vineyards. Eighty percent comes from Les Murets (regarded as one of the appellation's finest white wine vineyards) and 20% from l'Ermite.Tasting through Guigal's new and up-coming releases confirms his legendary consistency. He is the quintessential multitasker, fashioning inexpensive fine wines as well as super-luxurious, utterly profound reds and whites. When Guigal purchased the Grippat holdings, he received six acres of the Vignes de l'Hospice, a stunningly steep, photogenic vineyard at the top of the northern sector of St.-Joseph, looking down on the town of Tournon. These are the same decomposed granitic soils found across the river in Hermitage's Les Bessards vineyard. Everything Guigal has produced from this vineyard has been as profound as St.-Joseph can be. In fact, his only competitor is Michel Chapoutier's 500 or so cases of St.-Joseph Les Granits.Marcel's talented son, Philippe, is taking over more and more of the business, and appears more than capable of filling the extraordinary shoes of his father, who I doubt will ever retire. I reviewed Guigal's Cotes du Rhones and Chateauneuf du Papes in issue #173 (October, 2007), but he also continues to be an active buyer of high quality juice from Gigondas. He accomplishes this by tasting hundreds of samples, visiting 50-60 caves, and paying the highest price for his purchases. Guigal is unquestionably the most important producer of Cote Rotie. He buys grapes from nearly four dozen small growers, and supplements that from his own holdings. The single vineyard cuvees are excluded from this blend, but all his Cote Roties are vinified in his cellars. Guigal produces around 2,000 cases of Cote Rotie Chateau d'Ampuis, a cuvee he first made in 1995. About 7% Viognier is included in the blend, and the sources for the fruit are all fabulous sites from both the Cote Blonde and Cote Brune. According to Guigal, research in France's National Archives prove that in its past, Chateau d'Ampuis produced Cote Rotie from these same sites

96/98
Robert Parker, RobertParker.com (175), February 2008
Please note that these tasting notes/scores are not intended to be exhaustive and in some cases they may not be the most recently published figures. However, we always do our best to add latest scores and reviews when these come to our attention. We advise customers who wish to purchase wines based simply on critical reviews to carry out further research into the latest reports.