Coteau de Bassenon Côte-Rôtie Syrah

Faboosh. Unreal aromas. The darkest of all the Stephan Cru’s but so ethereal.

Great.

Heaven. Ethereal.

Atypical vintage if this. Most fruit driven Stephan I’ve tasted.

Stunning but young. So nimble and complex. Mint, game, so delicate. So elegant. Sweet but also tannic. So complex. So elegant. No formal notes.

Blew my mind. Luscious purple PnP, deep red floral nose, mineral and sleek black cherry. Enough structure for long aging but ready to go. Just wow.

Cool label, but can you explain what the hell "sérine" is? Apparently it's some tight clustered Syrah clone that's both "highly precise" and "vulnerable to disease". Sounds risky... Especially considering this comes from the frighteningly steep terraces of Cote Rotie. Not only that, but the wines were made without new oak or sulfur. He also picks early and uses some amount of carbonic maceration. Jean Michel Stephan uses to work for Guigal, but I guess he must of learned "what not to do" instead of mimicking the style.

The intensity is beyond belief! Cote Rotie is already aromatic, but this is amplified by the carbonic quality. Further, there's a large amount of Viognier here too, which lends a bright tropical punch in the midst of classic Syrah notes (tapenade? meatiness?). There's some similarity to the Matthieu Barret Cornas I just drank, but this has far more clarity in the aromatics - a quality both important and underrated. So striking here are the aromatics, it's hard to even move on to actually tasting the wine - but once you do, it surprises again.

This wine's balance is very strange... No oak, but the high acidity is tapered by carbonic maceration. It's soft, but lean at the same time. There's a slight oily texture which might be from the Viognier, but it's counter balanced by an amazing display of fresh fruit. Raspberry, pear, black cherry, and even pineapple. From the nose to the mid palate it's an exhilarating wine., but the finish is noticeably abrupt. The tannins are tart and bitter like the skin of an under ripe plum. Aesthetically it works. From the nose all the way into the mid palate, this wine is so "over-the-top" that a sudden, unexpected bitterness comes across as a moment of clarity instead of disappointment.

I highly recommend the wine. I hope to taste other vintages and bottlings.

#syrah #naturalwine #coterotie #northernrhone #jeanmichelstephan #syrah #biodynamic #rhone #northernrhone #rhonevalley

Producer > Vintage

Explosive and intense. Classic and natural. Great!!

Violets, red fruit, slightly wild, med body, med + acid 😍