1999 Côte-Rôtie Les Grandes Places

Recent warm years have been kind to this domain, which generally eschews chaptalizing as long as grape sugars reach 11.9% or 12%. This uncompromising approach can result in rather lean wines in less-ripe years. The 2000s, says Brigitte Roch, are on the light side, from clean grapes with around 12% potential alcohol, but they convey pure aromatics and lovely sappy verve. "The acids have been better and better here since we stopped using chemical fertilizers 15 years ago," said Roch. Not surprisingly, the freakishly ripe '99 growing season resulted in unusually strong wines for this domaine ("our best vintage yet," according to Gilbert Clusel, who started making wine here in 1980), although the tiny hail-shortened crop in Grandes Places yielded barely two barrels of supernal wine that few consumers will ever see.

The June 2 hailstorm in '99 decimated Les Grandes Places, at the northern end of the Cote-Rotie appellation, with the result that Gilbert Clusel and Brigitte Roch produced just two barrels of their top cuvee compared to a normal eight or ten. It by far the most promising wine I've ever sampled at this address, but it will not be easy to obtain in the marketplace. I normally find these wines rather lean for Cote-Rotie, no doubt due to Clusel's extreme reluctance to chaptalize; in some years, the finished wines don't reach 12% alcohol. But the '99 Grandes Places is an unprecedented 13.5%, with the wine retaining a normal pH. Basically, said Clusel, the vegetation was normal, but there was much less fruit to feed-just one or two clusters per vine. Clusel leaves very little lees with his wine and thus is able to keep the rackings to a minimum.