2017 Côte-Rôtie Les Grandes Places

Having taken on full control of his family’s domaine, Guillaume Clusel is slowly starting to expand his reach, not just at Clusel-Roch but with his own domaine as well. Starting with the 2018 vintage, there will be a Côte-Rôtie lieu-dit bottling from Champon, and it won’t be a small-production wine, as roughly 3,000 bottles will be produced in the inaugural vintage. Beginning with 2019, there will be another named wine, provisionally called “Didier Triangle,” which is made from fruit grown in Plomb, very close to this estate’s Viallière holding, and with a bit of overlap. Standard practice here means one-third whole clusters are used and the wines see roughly 20% new oak for their aging. Guillaume described 2017 as “a more deep and serious vintage than 2016 or 2018, even if the fruit was very ripe.” He suggested that “the underlying tannins will start to show soon and you should be patient with them.”