Bright ruby. Expressive, highly perfumed bouquet of raspberry, blackberry, anise, botanical herbs and incense. The spicy palate displays vivid, sharply focused red fruit and floral pastille qualities. Suave, building tannins add focus to this gently chewy, almost shockingly lithe and elegant Landonne, whose finish is precise, vibrant and surreally long.

Wine Advocate February, 2011 The most intense and opaque purple-colored effort is the 2006 La Landonne. More primordial than either the La Mouline or La Turque, it exhibits notes of asphalt, blackberries, charcoal, truffles, roasted meats and creme de cassis. Full-bodied as well as extraordinarily pure and rich, it is approachable, but will benefit from 4-5 years of bottle age and last 30-40 years.

A surprisingly structured, full-bodied, masculine wine in the vintage is the 2006 Cote Rotie la Landonne. Still inky colored and loaded with notions of beef blood, black olive, peppery herbs, smoke and scorched earth-like minerality, it still needs another 3-4 years of cellaring to start to be approachable. It will certainly be one of the longest-lived wines in the vintage and will have 3-4 decades of overall longevity.