Côte Rôtie La Mouline, Etienne Guigal 2007

The stunning 2007 Cote Rotie La Mouline boasts notes of sweet lychee nuts, licorice, black raspberries, kirsch and a floral/honeysuckle character that one associates with white wines. Full-bodied and voluptuously textured with silky tannin, this beauty is reminiscent of the 1997 and 1991 La Mouline. Enjoy it over the next 20 years.

A big step up, the 2007 Cote Rotie la Mouline boasts serious richness and depth, with a still tight, focused and youthful profile that's begging for another couple of years in the cellar. Giving up plenty of smoked earth, toast, dried flowers, graphite, chocolate and hints of bacon fat, it's a masculine version of this cuvee that should start to open up in another 3-4 years, and drink beautifully through 2032.

The dense ruby/purple-tinged 2007 Cote Rotie La Mouline will be bottled around the time this report is released. A superb effort made in the style of the 1991 (which is drinking beautifully at age 20), the 2007 displays silky, velvety tannins, a seamless integration of acidity, alcohol and tannin, and a luscious bouquet of charcoal, lychee nut, black cherries, raspberries and forest floor. Full-bodied, opulent and irresistible, this complex, supple 2007 can be enjoyed now and over the next two decades.

The 2007 Cote Rotie La Mouline reveals more herbaceousness at this stage of development than is typical. It is a perfumed, full-bodied, rich, dense effort that looks like an exquisite rather than sublime wine. These cuvees always flesh out and accumulate depth and richness during their long period in barrel. Guigal has mastered their remarkable upbringing better than anyone else in the world. This should turn out to be a very fine La Mouline, but it will be well behind the brilliance of the 2006, 2005, and 2003, but ahead of the 2004.