Almost brooding, with warm dark currant, fig and blackberry paste flavors simmering at the core, while waves of ganache, espresso, roasted mesquite and juniper flow through and around them. All the elements are pulled through a seriously long finish by a bolt of smoldering cast iron. This should age glacially. JM

Deep, bright-rimmed purple. An exotically perfumed, expressive bouquet evokes dark fruit liqueur, spicecake, smoky bacon, incense, vanilla and incense. A sexy floral nuance emerges with air and carries onto the palate, which displays intense blueberry, cherry liqueur, candied licorice and floral pastille flavors that deepen and spread out steadily on the back half. The floral, bacon and mineral notes come back strong on a strikingly long, youthfully tannic finish, that leaves a juicy blue fruit note behind.

Very dark, very brooding, with some herbal bitters showing through on the nose. Bay, juniper, olive from the stems meets the incense and cola. Very full-bodied indeed, intense extraction with a powerful base, shot through with dense, fruit-saturated tannins. A very powerful and muscular wine with a very long, chewy finish, dry and savoury. This will take a long time to come round - will be hard to handle when young. Fermented in stainless steel, 40 months in new French oak barriques.

Restrained nose with some herbal notes, black cherry, meat and the most exquisite floral scent. It's still under lockdown, with more tannic tension and grip than the other La Las but more fragrance somehow. Peacock power. So much more open-faced than the others, yet structurally more severe. (RH)

Impenetrably dense and dark, the 2015 Cote Rotie La Landonne is loaded with black olive, espresso and cassis fruit. It's full-bodied, rich and velvety in texture and nearly endless on the finish, yet it never seems overbearing or overripe, remaining vibrant and fun from start to finish. Right now, the tannins are prominent, giving the wine a dry, dusty sendoff, so give it a decade to mellow before opening a bottle.

This is a profound wine, offering really striking depth of aromas and flavors with a resonance that really stops you still. Dark stones, ripe dark plums and blackberries, licorice, sarsaparilla, orange peel and cloves with still more spices floating in the midst. The palate has such perfectly captured intensity of ripe dark plums and blackberries that it is seemingly impenetrable for now. Yet, the detail is all here. It builds and fills the palate completely with ripe, espresso-laced blackberries, black cherries and dark plums and delivers such freshness at the finish. This is a triumph and up there with the greatest La Landonne releases.

As majestic and regal as they come, the 2015 Côte Rôtie La Landonne is another perfect wine. A powerful, full-bodied, massively concentrated Côte Rôtie, it reveals a saturated purple color as well as an insane bouquet of smoked meats, graphite, liquid rocks, violets, and crème de cassis. It’s tannic as all hell, yet deep and flawlessly balanced, with no hard edges and a huge finish. It’s going to require a decade of cellaring to be drinkable but will keep for 40-50 years in cool cellars.
Lastly, the Côte Rotie La Landonne comes from a great lieu-dit in the Côte Brune side of the appellation. It is always 100% Syrah and is made using a cap immersion technique for fermentation. This cuvée was first made in 1978 and for each vintage has spent 48 months in new French oak. The La Landonne is always the most backward, structured, age-worthy of the lineup, and needs the most bottle age to hit maturity. It is also, however, the most consistent in terms of quality of the three single vineyards.