2017 Cote Rotie Cote Brune

Dark violet. An intensely perfumed nose displays mineral- and smoke-accented black and blue fruit and floral pastille scents that pick up olive paste, cured meat and exotic spice notes with air. In a concentrated yet lively style, offering appealingly sweet cherry, blueberry, candied licorice and fruitcake flavors braced by a spine of juicy acidity. Shows outstanding clarity and mineral thrust on a wonderfully long, floral-tinged finish shaped by chewy, slow-building tannins. Made entirely with whole clusters.

The 2017 Côte Rôtie Côte Brune is more floral as well as exotic, with full-bodied, powerful notes of smoked game, ground pepper, violets, and framboise. Brought up in 25% new larger barrels, it has a deep, concentrated mid-palate, beautiful purity of fruit, and enough tannins to warrant a solid decade of bottle age. It’s a quintessential, more classic example of Côte Rôtie compared to the more hedonistic and bombastic 2018. Domaine Jamet is located high up on the upper plateau above Côte Rôtie, around the village of le Vallin, and Jean-Paul and Corinne Jamet have been farming 25 different plots here, spread across 17 lieux-dits, since 1984. The majority of their holdings are located in the more schist-dominated Côte Brune side of Côte Rôtie (Chavaroche and Le Truchet being the largest) yet they also have prime real estate in Lancement and the Côte Blonde. The winemaking here is traditional yet not dogmatic, and the cellars are clean and impeccably kept. While Jean-Paul likes stems, there are plenty of parcels, and vintages, that see varying degrees of destemming and aging occurs mostly in demi-muids, with 15-30% being new. His Côte Rôties are bottled unfined and unfiltered after two years in barrel. Jamet’s wines represent a quintessential Côte Rôtie and possess incredible aromatics as well as a concentrated, structured style on the palate that rewards 5-7 years of bottle age. Top vintages of Jamet’s Côte Rôtie can evolve positively for 25 to 30 years. In addition to the classic cuvée, they also release a tiny production Côte Rôtie Côte Brune in top vintages. This cuvée comes all from the Côte Brune lieu-dit and sees a touch more new wood, but is largely made in the same, classic style. It always has a touch more concentration and structure yet can also show more elegant tannins.

Lovers of Côte Rôtie shouldn't bother waiting for reviews of this bottling—just try to get as much as you can every year. The 2017 Cote Rotie Cote Brune should be bottled by the time you read this, but at the time of my visit, it was still in barrel. Aromatically, this has it all—violets, stems, cracked pepper, amazing fruit. It's full-bodied, dense and absolutely packed, yet it comes across as silky, lithe and engaging, with tremendous length and complexity on the finish. Always a thrill to taste out of barrel, it does firm up after bottling, so try to resist the urge to pop a cork before 2025 or so.