2018 Côte-Rôtie Champon

Stéphane Ogier represents the seventh generation of his family in Ampuis. Ogier has taken the M & S Ogier d'Ampuis estate, established by his father, Michel, in 1983, to impressive heights. After attending viticultural school in Beaune (a popular alma mater for young winemakers in the region), Stéphane came on board in 1997. What started as, literally, a garage winery where 12,000 to 15,000 bottles were produced is now housed down the road in a spacious, state-of-the-art facility where over 300,000 bottles are issued. Ambitious for sure, but the demand is there. So much so that Ogier is comfortable slowing down the releases of his Côte-Rôties to allow the wines to acquire more bottle age, “which is always a good thing, even if it’s just for a few years,” he said.

Stéphane Ogier said that “even though the 2019s have really good acidity, they have more weight and power than the 2018s, so they’ll be drinking in a longer window.” He’s especially pleased with how appealing the 2018s have been showing “since the beginning” because of their “forward fruit. That’s great for the impatients, even if they say at first that they want to cellar the wines.” Ogier is starting to play around with holding certain wines back for a few years before release for that very reason. For example, he’s thinking that he might not release his 2018 and 2019 Côte-Rôtie Réserve “for maybe even five years, we’ll see,” in the hopes that more consumers will be able to drink the wines “when they’ve had a chance to become themselves and aren’t just young fruit.”