2016 Rene Rostaing Côte-Rôtie Côte Brune
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Tasting notes
Opaque purple. Powerful, smoke- and spice-tinged black and blue fruit, olive, exotic spice and violet aromas show superb clarity and building mineral character. Deeply concentrated and broad in the mouth, offering alluringly sweet dark berry liqueur, fruitcake, salty olive and floral pastille flavors plus suggestions of licorice and allspice. The wonderfully long, penetrating finish features intense, minerally cut, an echo of sappy blue fruit and chewy tannins that come in late. This is clearly one of the great wines of the vintage.
Critic scores
Jeff Leve, The Wine Cellar Insider
Jeb Dunnuck
More reviews and scores
The 2016 Cote Rotie Cote Brune boasts fantastic aromas of violets, tea, herbs, leather, raspberries and olives—the kind of complex aromas that compel multiple nosings. I hesitated to take a sip for fear the spell would be broken, but this wine lives up to that promise. It's medium to full-bodied, but so silky, so effortless to drink, so long, elegant and complex on the finish that I was rendered speechless in the cellar. My original notes include the phrases "blown away" and "pretty [expletive] great."
Inky ruby. Sexy, mineral-accented aromas of vibrant black and blue fruits, candied flowers, olive and exotic Indian spices show outstanding clarity and a touch of smokiness. Sweet, pliant and focused on the palate, offering deeply concentrated black raspberry, cherry and floral pastille flavors that show unlikely vibrancy for their heft. A vibrant mineral nuance drives an impressively long, youthfully tannic finish, which leaves behind a suave violet pastille note.