2010 Côte-Rôtie

"A precocious vintage" is how Bernard Burgaud succinctly described 2011 for Cote-Rotie, later expanding on the thought to add that "the wines are already delicious but they have good length, which suggests that they will also age better than some think."He calls 2010a "completely singular vintage, with concentration but also charm."He said that he considers it to be "even better than 2005," the vintage that he considered to be the apex of his own winemaking until '10 came along.I find recent wines here to be far sexier, fruitier and more approachable than those of the past, but they're not at all lacking for structure.There's more sweetness, floral character and silkiness of texture to the wines today than in, say, the late 1980s and early 1990s, when Burgaud's wines often displayed dryish, gritty tannins and, often, distinctly sauvage character.Burgaud attributes this to "more mature vines and, hopefully, more personal maturity and experience as a winemaker," adding that he hasn't make a conscious style shift except for "perhaps trying to make the fruit come through the tannins a little earlier than in the past, but not to make wines that you drink right after bottling."

The issue with 2009, in Burgaud's opinion "is that the oak stands out in the wines so they need to be aged for the fruit to catch up."By contrast, he added, in 2010 the oak was absorbed almost immediately."The wines are expressive and hiding their tannins already.You can practically drink them straight from the barrel."Not that he recommends rushing to drink them on release:"2010 will be an aging vintage on its balance, not on its power, which is what 2009 will hopefully do."There's never more than 20% new oak used here, "for polish and a little sweetening," which no doubt accounts for the silkiness of Burgaud's wines, even from more structured vintages.