Domaine René Rostaing La Landonne 2019

Lastly, the 2019 Côte Rôtie La Landonne flirts with perfection and has a heavenly, textbook Landonne nose of smoked meats, woodsmoke, truffle, crushed stone, and assorted red and black fruits. It’s powerful yet opulent, with velvety tannins, a beautifully layered mouthfeel, and one hell of a great finish. Count yourself lucky if you’re able to latch onto any of these 2019s from Rostaing! This beauty will shine for 25-30 years if stored correctly.

Complex array of dark fruit preserve, floral, spice and savory herb qualities on the highly perfumed nose; a smoky mineral note gains volume as the wine opens up. Shows excellent clarity and spicy lift to the concentrated cherry liqueur, blueberry and spicecake flavors, which slowly expand through the midpalate. Blends depth and energy with a sure hand and shows impressive energy and mineral thrust on a very long, youthfully tannic finish.

After tasting Rostaing's 2019 Côte Brune, it would be difficult for any wine to measure up, but the 2019 Cote Rotie la Landonne comes darn close and is a more-than-acceptable second choice. Notes of violets and red raspberries lead the way on the nose, backed by the vineyard's signature roasted meat and black olives. Medium to full-bodied, incredibly concentrated and worthy of two decades of cellaring, yet not unapproachable even now, this is another suburb effort to emerge from Rostaing's magical vineyard holdings.