Brilliant purple. A highly perfumed bouquet evokes ripe red and dark berries, Asian spices, candied violet and incense, and a bright mineral quality adds lift. Seamless, sweet and energetic on the palate, offering vibrant black raspberry, boysenberry, floral pastille and spicecake flavors that spread out and gain weight with aeration. Manages to be both powerful and elegant, showing superb balance, powerful back-end thrust and velvety tannins that shape the extremely long, floral-tinged finish.

I give Rostaing's 2015 Cote Rotie La Cote Blonde the slightest of edges over the La Landonne for its more aromatic, floral nose. It shows that same unfathomable depth and richness married to a sense of weightlessness and elegance that marks the La Landonne, and it also shows those wonderfully pure raspberry flavors. It's lush, velvety and incredibly long on the finish. Collectors fortunate enough to grab some of each will have great fun comparing the two over the next 30 years or so. Drink Date: 2020 - 2045. Joe Czerwinski