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E. Guigal La Landonne 1999 Posted: Thursday, April 01, 2004
By Per Henrik-Mansson
When three wines from one vintner earn
classic ratings of 99, 98 and 97 from Wine Spectator, it may be hard to
choose among such a rare triple threat. But for Marcel Guigal, who is
arguably the most influential vintner in France’s Rhône Valley,
his single-vineyard cru La Landonne (99), with its tobacco aromas, stands
out from La Mouline (97) and La Turque (98), his two other collectible
Côte Rôtie crus—at least when it comes to cigar pairings.
Guigal ranks the 1999 Côte Rôtie La
Landonne (99, $275 on release) among the top three vintages in the last 20
years, comparing the overall quality to the “sublime vintages”
of 1982 and 1988.
And the famed ’90 vintage? “In
Côte Rôtie, 1999 is superior to 1990, when Hermitage did better
than Côte Rôtie,” says Guigal. “The ’99 is
delicious today, but it will still be great in 50 years.”
In 1999, Guigal and his son, Philippe, produced an
elegant and racy La Landonne. It displays the ripe tannins typical of the
vintage in the northern Rhône, which Wine Spectator rates a
“classic” 95 on its 100-point scale. The wine melts on the
palate and delivers refined blackberry flavors. Like Guigal’s other
single-vineyard crus, the wine was aged for 42 months in new oak barrels,
and it smells of mocha-scented oak and chocolate.
In the late 1960s, Guigal and his father, Etienne,
began to buy small parcels in La Landonne from other growers in Côte
Rôtie, an appellation that grows Syrah on the Right Bank of the
Rhône River. The family is credited with revitalizing the appellation
at a time when many growers in the area were abandoning grape production
because of the high cost of operating on the river’s steep banks,
where mechanization is virtually impossible. The winery, E. Guigal,
released the first vintage of La Landonne in 1978. Today, Guigal has five
acres in La Landonne and produces between 800 and 900 cases a year.
“It’d be a sin to match La Mouline with
cigars, because it’s a delicate wine with a lighter tannin
structure,” says Guigal. “You need a wine like La Landonne with
lots of personality and terroir, and its prune and tobacco notes make a
good match.”
Visit www.guigal.com. |
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