Given what you’ve said this is pretty easy. Jamet and Ogier are both available in the US, consistent producers, and differ in style. Try those two and you’ll have a good bead on what to do next.
pierre gaillard makes some really nice stuff…he typically has two different cote rotie blends (i worked for him 02-03). clusel-roch is very tasty (but they’re very small so probably hard to find). cuilleron, mostly known for whites, has great cr’s as well. could also look out for les vins des vienne (partnership btwn gaillard, cuilleron, and viallard) larger negoc production. few others would be jean-michel gerin and yves gangeloff. amazing producers.
I had Eric’s '06 CR last year and it was nice but painfully young and structured. Another very under the radar is Jean Paul Brun’s CR, yes that Brun from Beaujolais. He mentioned he had family holdings and bottles a small amount. The '07 was very pure, clean and should be amazing at maturity.
Brun that’s interesting. I am pretty sure he is related (maybe my marriage) to JM Stephan. My French is poor but pretty sure that’s what he told me a while back. Did not know he was making some of his own.
I agree with others that the wines often don’t show their stuff until a good 15 years out. Much as I like the 1998s and 1999s, I think 1997 is a better bet for current drinking – I’ve had a few in the last two years, and they’ve been drinking well. I see w-s shows a couple of stores with the Duclaux at a very reasonable price. The wine is good if not top-rank, and drinking well now. For the price, you can’t go wrong (well, other than storage issues).
I also like Texier, and the 1999 can still be found with some digging. I haven’t had it recently, so it may or may not be drinking well now.
For Guigal, the older wines can be really great. In the late 80s/early 90s, they lost many of their best fruit sources as more growers decided to bottle their own.
I also note that someone has the 98 Jamet for under $70. That’s pounceworthy, given the marketplace. I’d be pretty tempted myself, if I weren’t on winebuying probation and didn’t already have six of them.
This thread has been hugely interesting and provides a wealth of data–thanks a lot, and keep it up!
Hey Chris, I’m currently working on my next newsletter that will cover, gaillard, allemand, rostaing, ogier, jamet, guigal… I’ll have 17 or 18 producers and 50’ish notes… Shooting for first week in february. Holler if you’re interested and I can drop you an email when it’s out. The recs here have been great… JM Stephan’s Tupin is fantastic… and Allemand’s '06 Reynard, at 60 bucks, is a steal!
One of my favourite Cote-Rotie producers, who has the advantage of being reasonably priced considering the quality and personality of his wines, is Bernard Burgaud. I found a few of his wines in the US, including the brilliant 2005, on wine-searcher. Clusel-Roch also make stunningly elegant and refined Cote-Rotie which isn’t outrageously priced. Their wines are truly wonderful, but production is very small, so might be hard to find. Of course, Jamet is brilliant but less affordable and have a ‘hen’s teeth’-grade rarity value.
It has been pointed out that these wines need age, and this is especially true if you get a really serious vintage like 2005. 7-10 years old is when you should really start drinking such wines and they will last a lot longer than that. However, I’ve tasted a few 2007s, which is also a good vintage, and these seem quite fruit-driven and accessible. If you want to try a young Cote-Rotie I’d try to score a bottle of an 07.
Cote-Rotie can be beautiful wines of elegance, poise and refinement. If you are used to large-scale Syrah wines it’d be worth trying one of the three producers I mention just to see a wildly different style of the grape.
Cheers,
David.
The 94 I had was lovely but not really special in the ‘omfg’ way… it’s just not that kind of wine. I liked it a lot because it showed ‘Chaveness’ and the nose was lovely and open and I’m more of a nose/aromatics wine geek than a palate density person. But don’t get me wrong - neither 94 nor 97 are close to the 98 or 95 right now. But those wines both needs another 5 years to really show what they are.
Wow! You guys are awesome. Thanks for all of the advice. I’m going to track a few older vintages down if I can and see what I like. Does it take a few years for CR to make it to the U.S. once it’s released?
Chris
It really depends on the producer, but it’s usually a lag behind the Southern Rhone stuff, I would say 6 to 8 months on average.
One thing I’d caution you about is aging as long as some have suggested here. Few CR’s are built to go over 20 years other than the la’la’s which almost aren’t CR in their profile. Most, in my view, are best between 10-15 years. Some can stretch to 20 with much more bottle variability by that point. Some of the '91’s are still drinking very well … .but even the best (other than lala’s again) are beginning to dry as well. I’d not wait on them. Rostaing says he enjoys his own wine between 4 and 7 years old (an extreme view, I think). I would not be buying 70’s CR for any price.
Hermitage = 20 year plus wine. CR = 10 year plus wine. Generalization of course. Sidenote: I think comparing CR to Hermitage is like comparing Beaune White Burg’s to Chablis. Same grape. Same region. Different wines.
Regarding style, if you are going to dabble … you should consider a variety such as: Guigal (modern), Jamet or Ogier (traditional with modern twist), Burgaud (traditional).
I’m surprised by the amount of Jamet support here Maybe all the Jamet supporters are on this board. And, would you please be quiet about how good it is? 
Sorry, can’t do that.
I’m fairly surprised at the amount of Clusel Roch mentioned. Those wines can be a bit strange.
If you’d like to try some old school Cote Rotie, try the wines from Bernard Levet. At a recent tasting, the 1999 Bernard Levet “Chavaroche” stood out as one of the best wines of the night. The 1999 from Texier was spoofy and not good at all. I also like Clusel-Roch, Jasmin and Jamet.
Guigal’s wines tend to be soaked in new oak, so if you like chocolate, vanilla and coconut oil in your wines that’s where you go.
I will be drinking 1993 Chapoutier Ermitage le Pavillon tomorrow night…not Cote Rotie, but still Northern Rhone in a worse vintage, than 1994…I will report back.
Are you talking about the LaLas or the Ch. d’Ampuis and B&B? If the latter, I disagree. Though Guigal probably has the longest oak aging of any C-R (2+ years, not all new, for the B&B; 3+ years in new oak for the Ampuis; 3.5+ years in new oak for the LaLas), the oak doesn’t stand out in the way it does on some other producers’ wines. Philippe Guigal says that past a certain point of barrel aging, the oakiness actually diminishes, and that was borne out clearly by barrel tastings when I visited some years back, and by my experience with the bottle wines over 25+ years.
It was a while ago that I visited Guigal, so things might have changed, but some serious probing about the oak treatment the single vineyard Cote-Roties receive resulted in a quite surprising discovery. M. Guigal said they see 100% new oak, but when pressed he revealed that the Guigal definition of new oak was that 1/3 of the barrels were first use, 1/3 were second use and 1/3 were on their third batch of wine. I was rather surprised to learn this, and it explains why the oak character in these wines is not as pronounced as the ‘100% new oak’-claim would lead one to expect.
It is perhaps a tad disingenuous to refer to this ageing process as using 100% new oak, but to be honest I am glad Guigal don’t actually do that. If the wines were really totally aged in new oak for as long as they are they would most likely be unpleasantly oak-themed.
Cheers,
David.
David –
But I think it’s the very extended time in barrique as well. I remember that the wines that had been in barrel three years were less oaky than those that had been aged only one or two years. Philippe said that that was the case.
There’s plenty of good advice here and I, almost as usual, agree with Guillaume with his description of the AOC.
I, too, love Jamet. Year in and year out. Loved them for long and probably (hopefully) always will.
Something I’d like to mention is that I have tasted a few Syrah from Switzerland that had quite a few common characteristics with those made in Cote-Rotie. If you seek Syrah from “colder” climates, do not forget or ignore them. They may be hard to find, though?
Cheers
- Michael
Not the ones from the '60’s and '70’s.
Additionally, for the more recent vintages there is enough fruit so that with bottle age the oak becomes integrated and those flavors you mentio dissipate.