1997 Côte-Rôtie La Landonne

Gerin, whose technique is constantly evolving, now works with a score or more different combinations of oak source (including wood from Lithuania and Russia), cooper and barrel char. Still, he says, the assembled wines from multiple components almost invariably are far more successful than any single barrel. The 1998 vintage, according to Gerin, offers a good compromise between the acidity of '96 and the alcohol of '97; indeed, these wines offer a felicitous combination of concentration, backbone and freshness. Gerin bottled his '97s in September, because he likes the way the second summer in oak rounds the wines. These extremely rich, low-acid Cote-Roties "are ready to drink right now with a sausage sandwich," says Gerin.

Like most of the Cote-Rotie growers I visited this year, Gerin says he refused to acidify his '97s, despite the relatively high pHs of the fruit that year. "Acidification in Cote-Rotie would be a severe intellectual error," Gerin maintained. "It would completely throw off the balance of the wine." Gerin brought in fruit with potential alcohol up to 13%, the highest since 1991, a vintage to which he compares the '97s. Beginning with the '96s, Gerin has eliminated early bottling as he is now convinced that the wines gain enormously in complexity during their second summer in barrel. All the Cote-Roties here are made in barriques.