Showing beautifully the 2009 Cote Rotie La Landonne offers aromas of tapenade bouquet garni asphalt blackberries cassis roasted meats and additional black fruits. More evolved and softer than the 2010 with a long full-bodied finish it can be drunk now and over the next 10-15 years. Drink: 2011 - 2026Rene Rostaing's elegant style is well-displayed in both 2010 and the riper more fleshy exuberant 2009 vintage. Always the sexiest wine in Rostaing's cellar is the Cote Rotie Cote Blonde. It includes 3-4% co-fermented Viognier and is always the most seamless wine resembling haute couture.

The 2009 vintage was even warmer and riper than the 2010, and I expected to like this wine decidedly less than its younger counterpart, but I was reasonably well-disposed to this more fruit-driven example of La Landonne, as the wine is at least not overtly overripe or alcoholic. The sun-baked bouquet is a mix of cassis, dark berries, pepper, hung game, damp soil tones and black olives. On the palate the wine is deep, full-bodied, gamy and chocolaty, with a plump core, low acids and pretty good length and grip on the ripely tannic finish. This has the glossiness to its structure of a very ripe year, and I suspect that this wine will be ready to start drinking in only another three or four years. It is not a great La Landonne from Monsieur Rostaing, but, given the style of the vintage, I was expecting worse! 88+