2016 Cote Rotie Les Grandes Places
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Tasting notes
Inky purple. Explosively perfumed aromas of fresh blackberry, boysenberry, incense, licorice and smoky minerals. Deeply concentrated and alluringly sweet, offering palate-staining dark berry preserve, licorice candy, bitter chocolate and violet pastille flavors, along with a touch of exotic spices that emerges on the back half. Finishes broad, chewy and impressively long, with steadily building tannins and lingering florality.
Critic scores
Average Score
James Suckling
Jeff Leve, The Wine Cellar Insider
More reviews and scores
Smoked thyme, olives and pepper add to the juicy, kirsch and black raspberries. On the palate, the wine is precise, fresh, juicy, long and clean. Give this at least 5-7 years in the cellar before popping a cork.
This has darker fruit with more modern spices and riper, darker, cherry and boysenberry character. The palate is very powerful, very defined and beautifully cast in terms of tannins. Dark-chocolate and black-cherry-liqueur flavors at the finish. A terraced plot, high up on the slope. 30 per cent whole cluster fermentation. Pure syrah with no viognier. Try in 2024.
Bright purple. Powerful, spice-accented dark berry preserve, fruitcake, candied violet and licorice scents, along with notes of vanilla, olive and smoky Indian spices. Palate-staining blueberry and cherry liqueur flavors show superb depth braced by a spine of juicy acidity. Expands slowly with air, picking up hints of star anise and cola. At once plush and energetic, finishing with superb clarity, mounting tannins and outstanding persistence.