Offers a lovely velvety feel from the start with very fleshy blackberry linzer torte and mulled plum fruit flavors woven with bittersweet cocoa licorice snap and roasted alder wood notes. The long smoldering finish has ample flesh for the cellar. Drink now through 2017. 300 cases made. -JM

More backward but rich and deep the 2009 St.-Joseph Lautaret is a more modern-styled effort exhibiting smoky barrique smells in the background nicely integrated with black cherry and black currant fruit and minerality. Give it 2-3 years of cellaring and enjoy it over the following decade. Durand's finest St.-Joseph is usually Les Royes but their 2009 is already sold out so I did not have a chance to taste it. 90+