2015 Cote Rotie Les Becasses

The entry-level Côte Rôtie mostly from purchased grapes is the 2015 Côte Rôtie Les Bécasses. Possessing terrific quality, it offers deep black and blue fruits, spice, underbrush and violet aromatics as well as a medium to full-bodied, pure, seamless and elegant style on the palate. It's a terrific entry-level wine that readers shouldn't miss. Enough can’t be said about the quality coming from the estate of Michel Chapoutier. Taking over the domaine from his father in the late 1980s (his first vintage was 1989), Michel quickly moved the estate completely to bio-dynamic farming as well as building a new, state of the art winery located just outside of Tain l’Hermitage. These are classic, traditionally made wines that are never acidified (or chaptalized), are brought up mostly in demi-muids (with plenty of used oak), and bottled unfined and unfiltered. He also continues to grow the brand (this is easily one of the largest tastings I do every year from a single producer) and has added two new Côte Rôties in 2015, the Quatrain and Neve cuvees. The Quatrain is reserved for grapes that didn’t make it into the selection parcellaire releases, and the Neve comes from a single parcel in the northern part of the appellation. Both are impressive wines, although I don’t envy anyone trying to explain the full portfolio to buyers in the market. In addition, while it’s easy to focus on the top cuvées from this estate, the portfolio is packed with incredible values at just about every price point. These reviews focus on the 2015 and 2016 vintages, with all the 2015s tasted out of bottle and the majority of the 2016s still resting in barrel. The 2015 vintage is a monumental one for this estate and matches (and in a few cases, eclipses) what was accomplished in 2009 and 2010. These are ripe, concentrated, structured wines that are going to demand cellar time. In contrast, the 2016s are more elegant and silky, with terrific purity of fruit. They don’t have the sheer grandeur of fruit found in the 2015s, yet are seriously concentrated and have no shortage of tannins and structure.

It's hard to believe this is Chapoutier's "entry-level" Côte Rôtie. The 2015 Cote Rotie les Bécasses is a rich, full-bodied, creamy-textured effort, loaded with ripe fruit that takes the form of mocha, milk chocolate and roasted meat, leading into a long, savory and velvety finish.

Inky ruby. A highly perfumed bouquet evokes ripe red and blue fruit, Asian spice and potpourri qualities, and an exotic incense nuance emerges slowly. Sappy, penetrating and focused on the palate, offering sweet black raspberry, boysenberry and allspice flavors and a deeper suggestion of licorice. Concentrated but energetic as well, with delivering strong closing thrust, even tannins and an echo of sweet blue fruit.