Cote Rotie Grandes Places, Clusel-Roch 2017

Deep, dark violet. Primary dark fruit aromas are complemented by suggestions of incense, candied flowers and exotic spices, along with subtle cracked pepper and cola nuances. Deeply concentrated blueberry, bitter cherry and violet pastille flavors slowly turn sweeter as the wine opens up. Shows outstanding energy and mineral thrust on an extremely long, focused finish that features fine-grained tannins and repeating blue fruit and floral character. (Drink between 2025-2035)

Les Grandes Places is the Clusel family’s oldest vines example of Côte-Rôtie, as their one hectare parcel in this great terroir are fully eighty years of age today. This bottling is entirely syrah, fermented with indigenous yeasts, partially whole clusters and aged for two years in cask, with one quarter of the barrels new. The old vine intensity here is quite evident on the nose, which wafts from the glass in a superb blend of black raspberries, cassis, pepper, bonfire, roasted venison, a superb base of dark soil, a hint of black olive, hazelnut and a refined framing of cedary oak. On the palate the wine is precise, full-bodied and complex, with a lovely core of black fruit, excellent mineral drive and grip, ripe tannins and impeccable balance on the long, cool, complex and very promising finish. Given the drought conditions of 2017, the svelte, transparent and utterly classical shape of this wine is remarkable, as is its thirteen percent octane! The twenty-five percent new oak here still needs some time to fully integrate, but will do so seamlessly in due course. That said, this is most emphatically a wine that does not need the new oak, as the combination of very old petite serine vines and such a great terroir would do just fine without any new casks at all. (Drink between 2030-2075)