Côte Rôtie La Turque, Etienne Guigal 2015

A perfect wine in every way, the 2015 Côte Rôtie La Turque comes from an incredible terroir on the Côte Brune and includes 7% Viognier. Stylistically, it normally fits between the more ripe, exuberant La Mouline and the more austere, tannic La Landonne. A deep purple color is followed by extraordinary notes of spring flowers, crushed violets, vanilla bean, and cured meats. This gives way to a full-bodied Côte Rôtie that has a stacked mid-palate, lots of ripe, silky tannins, no hard edges, and a finish that won’t quit. Syrah, or red wine for that matter, doesn’t get any better! Hats off to the Guigal family for another magical wine. Give bottles 6-7 years of bottle age and enjoy over the following 30 years or more.

Like the La Mouline, the 2015 Cote Rotie La Turque comes across as slightly closed—I wouldn't be surprised to see it inch up to a perfect rating in a decade or so. Lashings of ground spices—pepper, allspice, cardamom—are sprinkled over mixed berries, but this full-bodied wine is locked up tight, finishing with firm tannins. Give it at least 5-6 years, maybe even a decade or so, before pulling a cork.

The 2015 Côte Rôtie La Turque (93% Syrah and 7% Viognier) is straight-up thrilling stuff and offers a massive, full-bodied style that stays seamless, incredibly elegant, and perfectly balanced. It doesn’t have the sheer weight or exotic quality of the La Mouline, yet gives up textbook crème de cassis, crushed rocks, violets, and graphite aromas and flavors. With fine tannins and a stacked mid-palate, it’s going to require 5-7 years of bottle age.

The potentially perfect 2015 Cote Rotie La Turque takes all of this vineyard’s exotic floral and herbal notes, red raspberry fruit, spice shadings and meaty complexity and compresses them into an incredibly dense, powerful and intense package. Full-bodied, rich and velvety yet ethereal at the same time, this incredibly long wine should prove to be a legend.