Cote Rotie Grandes Places, Clusel-Roch 2017

An attractive nose with blackberries and dark plums, swathed in fine-ground, woody spices. The palate has a smooth, succulent and fleshy feel. Very long, fresh and crunchy. Granular. Try from 2024; this has serious aging potential.

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)

Tasted blind. Almost jammy black fruit on the nose, plus sweet vanilla spice. Excellent peppery character to the palate with savoury black cherry fruit and a moderate floral finish. Covers all the classic Côte Rôtie checkpoints. Stylish, balanced, relatively light. Drink: 2020-2032