Wine Advisor
Delas, Cote Rotie La Landonne 2006
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Reviewed by: Jeb Dunnuck
The 2006 Cote Rotie la Landonne is shockingly good in the vintage. As always, it's 100% Syrah and saw all new French oak for 16 months before being bottled unfined and unfiltered. Offering up incredible notes of raspberry, cassis, olives, wood smoke and Asian spices, this beauty hits the palate with full-bodied richness, terrific levels of concentration, sensational purity and a great finish. Easily in the top 2-3 wines of the vintage, drink it anytime over the coming 15-20 years. Note, there was no 2007 Cote Rotie la Landonne due to hail damage.
Reviewed by: Robert M. Parker, Jr.
There will not be a 2007 Cote Rotie La Landonne as the vineyard was destroyed by hail, but the 2006 Cote Rotie La Landonne is a wine of great intensity. Its dark plum/purple color is followed by scents of scorched earth, underbrush, forest floor, blackberries, black cherries, and camphor. With fabulous intensity, full body, good acidity, and beautifully integrated tannin and wood, this is a stunning wine to drink over the next 20-25 years. As I have written many times in the past, this famous estate, which muddled along in the seventies, eighties, and early nineties, was reborn when its owners, the Deutz-Roederer Champagne enterprise, brought in the super-talented Jacques Granges, and gave him carte blanche to redo the cellars and elevate the level of quality. Since his first vintage, 1997, Delas has become one of the superb purveyors of high quality Rhone wine. I have enormous admiration for what Granges has accomplished. His most recent vintages, 2005 and 2006, have been brilliant and he continues to do a superb job with the white wines Readers should also know that Delas recently purchased 37 acres of vines in Crozes-Hermitage, so they will be augmenting their production from that appellation. The bottled 2005 reds include some interesting efforts from some of the better villages in the south. The Chateauneuf du Papes and Cotes du Rhones were reviewed in issue #173 (October, 2007) Importer: Maison Marques et Domaines, Oakland, CA; tel. (510) 587-2000
Reviewed by: Jeb Dunnuck
The 2006 Cote Rotie la Landonne is a head turner that has more depth and density than most in this charming vintage. Cured meats, toasted spices, licorice and black currant aromas and flavors all emerge from this full-bodied, concentrated Cote Rotie that has decadent amounts of fruit and plenty of sweet tannin. I'd happily drink bottles anytime over the coming 15+ years.
Reviewed by: Robert M. Parker, Jr.
The compelling 2006 Cote Rotie La Landonne is sensational. Gamy black cherry and black currant fruit interwoven with notions of graphite, licorice, and scorched earth aromas jump from the glass of this dense, full-bodied, rich, pure 2006. This is a stunning wine with terrific minerality as well as laser-like focus. It, too, will benefit from 3-4 years of cellaring, and should last for two decades. In the late 1990s, as the quality of one of the northern Rhone’s most well-known negociant firms, Paul Jaboulet-Aine, was beginning to decline, the quality of Delas Freres was soaring, and they are now one of the three top negociant firms in the Rhone Valley. Delas Freres has been the property of Champagne Deutz since 1996, and belongs to the same owners as Champagne Louis Roederer. The owners as well as the Directeur Technique, the brilliant Jacques Grange, and winemaker Jean-Francois Farinet deserve credit for the rise in quality at this operation. The Delas Freres wines continue to go from strength to strength, and while I believe the Jaboulet wines will return to form under the new ownership, Delas Freres is already there. The current portfolio includes strong 2006s and very good 2007s. As long-time readers know, there is a hierarchy to the Delas wines from Crozes-Hermitage, St.-Joseph, Hermitage, and Cote Rotie. The finest values come from Crozes-Hermitage (especially their lower level cuvees, Les Launes and Domaine des Grands Chemins), and from St.-Joseph (Les Challeys). The quality jumps dramatically with the Crozes-Hermitage Le Clos, St.-Joseph Francois de Tournon, and the luxury cuvee, the St.-Joseph Ste.-Epine. In top vintages, there are two offerings from Cote Rotie, the single vineyard La Landonne and the Seigneur de Maugiron. Both cuvees were produced in 2006, but only the Seigneur de Maugiron was made in 2007 (because of the hail storm that destroyed a large percentage of the crop in Cote Rotie). Delas Freres owns 25 acres in Hermitage, from which they produce two cuvees, with Les Bessards only made in the top vintages. Importer: Maison Marques et Domaines, Oakland, CA; tel. (510) 587-2000
About the Producer
The famous Drass Frère wine company was founded in 1835. Since 1996, the spirit and soul that contributed to the reputation of quality wines has been restored. At present, the Dras brothers have a total of 30 hectares of vineyards, 10 of which are in the Emmettage-Hermitage appellation, 2 in Saint-Joseph and the remaining 18 in Croze-Hermitage. The steep granite hillsides provide favourable growing conditions for the vineyards of the Hermitage appellation, which produces the best quality wines. The grapes are hand-harvested and the fruit is intact and not prone to premature crushing, and in 1996 the estate was renovated by replacing all the old stainless steel fermentation vats with 85 litre concrete vats, and the 2,500 litre old oak barrels were replaced by 600 Burgundy oak barrels. The renovation of the equipment has allowed the winery to separate the fermentation of different batches of grapes, set the fermentation temperature according to the needs of the different varieties, and to monitor them in a targeted manner. The winery uses the gravity artesian method in the vinification process, where the fruit is crushed and poured by gravity into the fermentation vats. After fermentation and pressing, the wine is decanted into oak barrels where malolactic fermentation takes place. The main grape variety is Syrah, but the estate also produces some white wines, mainly made from Marsanne and Viognier. The wines of the Delas Brothers include Domaine des Tourettes, Les Bessards, Seigneur de Maugiron and Francois de Tournon. Francois de Tournon, among others.
