2016 Saint Cosme, Cote-Rotie, Northern Rhone, France.
The gorgeous and stylish Saint-Cosme 2016 Cote-Rotie is a luxurious vintage and opulent version with a textural grace and inner force that reminds you this is a wine that needs to be taken seriously. Barruol is a huge fan of the ancient local clone of Syrah and his Cote-Rotie is 100% Serine (Syrah) grown on pure Schist in the Le Plomb, Besset, la Viaillère and Neve Lieu-Dit vineyards. This vintage is spectular for the Northern Rhone, especially Cote-Rotie offering both ripe flavors and lifting acidity, these are powerful and dense wines, but with excellent balance, finesse and length. Saint-Cosme’s spent twelve months aging, with 40% in new casks and the remaining 60% in casks used one time which seems pretty lavish at first, but when the wine opens it all folds together to near perfection. Helping absorb the new oak is the vintage’s fullness and nice acidity with Barruol using 100% whole cluster fermentation, which is why this wine excites the palate and has intriguing complexity and a background of savory spices to go with that thick black and blue fruit.
This 2016 Louis Barruol Saint Cosme Cote-Rotie has everything you’d expect and want, especially for the price this is outrageously good stuff, maybe a sleeper in a vintage full of great wines from the region, but one that should not be missed, and a wine that will only get better with time. While known for his famed Gigondas in the Southern Rhone, Barruol has a gift for these Northern Rhone Syrah based wines and this Cote-Rotie is prove positive of that remarkable talent with it showing classic detail, restraint and heavenly length in a medium bodied beauty that is full of black fruit, spice, cured meat and toasty oak notes, like a baby Guigal La La. Layers of boysenberry, damson plum, black cherry and blueberry fruit forms a core here along with a touch of graphite, creme de cassis, peppercorns, elegant violets, mineral tones, vanilla and anise, that all come together in a seamless and magnificent symphony of flavors. Things should get even better and more interesting over the next 5 to 10 years, even better is news that in case you missed this 2016 the 2017 looks to be as good if not even better, if you’ve not discovered Saint Cosme’s negociant wines, now is the perfect time, especially his Crozes-Hermitage, Saint-Joseph and Cote-Rotie bottlings.
($55 Est.) 94 Points, grapelive