1978 Côte-Rôtie La Mouline

Guigal's La Mouline, arguably the single greatest example of Côte-Rôtie and unquestionably one of the three or four finest syrah-based wines in the world, is actually a marque, or a trademark. Technically, La Mouline is part of the Côte Blonde hillside, at the heart of the Côte-Rôtie appellation above the town of Ampuis. But La Mouline is also a specific site—a one-hectare vineyard, probably the oldest in Côte-Rôtie, with an average vine age of about 80 years.x000D The earliest vines in La Mouline date back to 1893, when planting in Côte-Rôtie started up again after phylloxera. The Guigals planted some additional vines, including a good bit of viognier, after they purchased the Mouline parcel from the Dervieux family in the early 1960s (Marcel had just joined his father Etienne in 1961 and was soon to become the locomotive of the Côte-Rôtie appellation). At that time, there were still some cherry trees in the vineyard.x000D x000D The syrah here is all petit sérine, the small-berried old syrah that produces extraordinary creaminess and flavor intensity while normally avoiding hard tannins. This is an important advantage, because so many of today's Côte-Rôties are from clonal selections that produce larger grapes, with less structure and concentration of fruit. The vineyard is co-planted with 11% viognier, a very high percentage for a modern-day Côte-Rôtie. When vines die, the Guigals replace them with the same variety to maintain a constant ratio of syrah to viognier. The soil of La Mouline is light, shallow, fast-draining limestone, mica and flint, plus a lot of calcareous silt and clay (essentially windblown dust), all underlaid by huge rocks. La Mouline is a very dry site: drought is more of a threat to the vines than excessive moisture.x000D La Mouline may be the most perfect amphitheater vineyard in the Côte-Rôtie appellation, with an exposition from full south to southeast. Wines have been made from this site for 2,400 years. It's a true heat trap: according to Philippe Guigal, Marcel's son, the sun heats the rocks, and the rocks radiate the heat toward the inside of the vineyard. So even at three o'clock in the morning in August, according to Philippe, the temperature amidst these vines can be 80 degrees. The vineyard is planted to a dense 10,000 vines per hectare. There are numerous very small terraces, some holding just a few vines, and some of the original walls still exist.x000D Once the Guigals decide the moment is right to pick, the grapes in La Mouline can be harvested in half a day. Prior to 1993, Guigal did not even own a destemmer. Since then, the Guigals may destem their fruit completely or not at all, depending on how ripe the stems are in a given year. Typically the fruit is partially destemmed. (Note that even today Guigal's La Landonne is not destemmed, with the exception of the difficult harvest of 2002.) Destemming decisions may not track what you think you know about vintages. For example, in the very difficult 1993 vintage, Guigal harvested very late. The berries were not completely ripe but the stems were, and no destemming was done. In '95, a year in which the grapes ripened thoroughly, the stems were completely green, and all the stems were removed.x000D According to Philippe Guigal, there are no secrets to the vinification of La Mouline. The fruit spends three to four weeks in the vat, with classic rémontage: 15-minute pumpovers every morning and afternoon. In lighter years, the Guigals don't look for a lot of extraction. Guigal uses no commercial yeasts. Since the La Mouline vineyard ripens early and is usually the first fruit into the cuverie, there aren't yet any yeasts floating around in the air. This normally allows for the equivalent of a cold maceration of five or six days before the fermentation starts. But the must is not chilled, except in years like '97, when the grapes came in already very warm. Since 1981, the wines have been fermented ...