Gorgeous, silky red that is thickly textured. Full-bodied, with near flawless balance, it delivers layers of mocha, coffee, ginger, blackberry, and brownie flavors. Focused, pure, fresh, it's a big wine, not showy, but beckoning. Wine Spectator June 2001 >

The dense purple-colored, profound 1997 Cote Rotie La Turque (5-7% Viognier added to the blend) offers creme de cassis, licorice, and espresso aromas as well as notions of melted asphalt. Compared to La Mouline, it has additional layers as well as structure, sweet tannin, and exhilarating levels of opulence and ripe fruit. Anticipated maturity: now-2018. Importer: Fred Ek, Ex Cellars Wine Agencies, Solvang, CA; tel. (805) 686-9153

The dense purple-colored, profound 1997 Cote Rotie La Turque (5-7% Viognier added to the blend) offers creme de cassis, licorice, and espresso aromas as well as notions of melted asphalt. Compared to La Mouline, it has additional layers as well as structure, sweet tannin, and exhilarating levels of opulence and ripe fruit. Anticipated maturity: now-2018.

Bright ruby. Reticent, liqueur-like aromas of griotte cherry and shoe polish. Rich and spherical, with extraordinary inner-mouth aromatics. Superripe and long on personality. Wonderfully ripe, persistent aftertaste. Utterly transcends the vintage.

The 1997 Côte-Rôtie La Turque from Etienne Guigal offers high-toned, quite precocious blue fruit, iris flower, hints of graphite and cracked black pepper. It is still fairly youthful, likewise the palate is pure and decadent, lavished in new oak that seems to be proportionate to the fruit, graphite and flint lending welcome tension on the finish. Impressive, but this needs another five to seven years in the cellar.