Côte Rôtie La Landonne, Delas Frères 2005

A 40-year wine is the 2005 Cote Rotie La Landonne. The wine is dense purple in color to the rim with a strikingly perfumed nose of blackberries, espresso roast, charcoal, and black raspberry and cassis. Striking minerality and graphite notes underlie this formidably endowed, rich, powerful wine that needs a good decade of cellaring. It should last for half a century. The very talented Burgundian Jacques Granges continues to build on the success he has had at Delas Freres. He, along with the new owners, the Deutz-Roederer Champagne empire (they recently acquired Pichon-Lalande in Pauillac as well), have been responsible for the resurrection of Delas from a so-so negociant to one of the better sources of top-quality Rhones. And this has been done in less than a decade. 2004 is a classic vintage of structure and good balance, but too often lacking concentration. The 2005s are much more concentrated but also structured, tannic, and backward.

I tasted the 2005 Cote Rotie La Landonne earlier in the year, and it showed almost identically this go around. Still tight, structured and backwards, with the tannic bite that’s common in the vintage, it gives up lots of charcoal, graphite and meaty dark fruits as well as full-bodied richness, a big mid-palate and building tannin on the finish. It needs another 3-4 years of cellaring and will be very long lived.