Côte Rôtie Côte Blonde, René Rostaing 2009

The beautiful 2009 Cote Rotie Cote Blonde offers up aromas of pepper, bouquet garni, spring flowers, roasted meats, black raspberries and kirsch. This fragrant, spicy, floral, opulent, voluptuously textured, medium to full-bodied 2009 possesses terrific purity (a hallmark of all the Rostaing wines). It, too, should drink nicely for 10-15 years, but there is no reason to delay your gratification.

The 2009 Côte Rôtie Côte Blonde isn’t far off the 2010 but has a more sunny, opulent style that’s very much in the vibe of the vintage. Lots of ripe black raspberry fruits, graphite, peppery spice, and earthy minerality give way to a full-bodied, opulent wine with chewy tannins and a blockbuster finish. It too has another two decades or more of prime drinking.

Bright purple. A kaleidoscopic bouquet displays scents of black raspberry, floral oils, incense and juniper berry. Exotic and deeply concentrated, offering sweet red and dark berry preserve flavors and notes of candied violet and spice cake. Powerful but impressively lithe, with excellent finishing energy and lingering notes of flowers and minerals. Some air brought out tannins but there's more than enough buffering fruit here to handle them.

Scented and concentrated. Very fresh and pointed. For the moment very youthful indeed. A little inky on the end. For Rostaing this is quite dramatic! It will need quite a while.