2015 Côte-Rôtie Améthyste

Agnes Levet told me that its not unfair to view 2015 as a cross of the power and structure of 2010 allied to the fruit intensity of 2009, with the freshness of 2012 and 2014 added into the mix. So a pretty unique combination of qualities and "not like any vintage" that she and her father have ever witnessed. Longtime fans of this domaine should be all over the 2015s, which Agnes says will need her parents' recommended fifteen years of patience, "at least", before they hit their stride. The wild character that has long defined the house style here is defintely still present but, as has been the case over the last few years, I detect more polish to Agnes' wines than those of her parents, especially in the case of the tannins, which in the past have often been forbidding at the very least if not simply fear-inspiring.

With a mere three and a half hectares of vines, all of them in Côte-Rôtie, the Levets’ wines will never be especially easy to find, but they have become a beacon for fans of traditional renditions of the appellation. Made with a high percentage of whole clusters (100% for the La Chavaroche) and raised in foudres and demi-muids, virtually all of them old (there’s about 10% new oak introduced each vintage) but very well maintained, these are Côte-Rôties in a style unaffected by fashion, which means they demand patience. When Agnès Levet talks about a vintage that requires cellaring, like her 2015s, she means a minimum of 15 years and really more like two decades. I’ve drunk plenty of bottles made by her father Bernard and her late mother Nicole back to their 1983 and I can say from experience that even in lesser vintages like 1984, 1986 and 1992 the wines evolve very slowly.

That said, I do find the wines made under Agnès’ watch, which began in earnest with the 2004 vintage, to show more polish and fresh, sweet fruit than those of her parents. These 2015s demonstrate what I mean as they possess the depth and power that one should expect from the vintage as well as a vibrancy and clarity that I have rarely experienced over the years since I first started visiting the Levets’ cellar in 1994. I wish that I could say that the wines are more accessible now than they were in the past. While I suppose I could, it would mean that I think that they now start showing well at 12 to 14 years of age rather than 15 to 18 as in the past, which would be cold comfort for impatient wine lovers or those without proper cellar conditions.

I’ve been especially impressed by the progress that Agnès has made with the Journaries bottling, which includes the fruit from the Levets’ tiny 0.3-hectare holding of La Landonne. While La Chavaroche, which is labeled La Péroline everywhere except in the U.S. market, holds pride of place for the Levets, the Journaries has, to my taste, been slowly and steadily approaching its big brother in quality, if not in sheer wildness, over the last few vintages.