2012 Côte-Rôtie Maison Rouge

In Christine Vernay's opinion the 2013 vintage "gave white wines with good concentration but you had to wait to harvest ripe fruit," which in the case of Condrieu meant into the first week of October. The resulting wines show healthy acidity and bright, citrussy fruit expression, "in a classic style, not superripe and exotic," as she put it. Even the estate's flagship Coteau du Vernon bottling, which is often dense and brooding on release, was showing a vibrant character and a distinctly mineral cast when I visited the estate in mid-December. As I've written in the past, the red wines here are going from strength to strength, and Vernay's 2012s show abundant spicy fruit and harmonious tannins that give them plenty of immediate appeal. Whole clusters are used judiciously here "to bring out spice and increase fragrance but not so much as to add too much tannins. Syrah has enough of its own to begin with."