| Score: |
94 JG.
"The Champet family’s la Viallière is the first bottlings from Côte-Rôtie that I have tasted from the 2015 vintage, and it is excellent. As was the case throughout all of France, the summer of 2015 was hot and dry, which may well have favored classicists like Joël Champet and his two sons, Romain and Maxime, who were wary of letting the grapes get too ripe. The 2015 la Viallière offers up a deep, ripe and classic nose of black fruit, spit-roasted game, some youthful syrah medicinal overtones, bitter chocolate, woodsmoke, lovely soil tones and (of course) a bit of youthful stemminess in the upper register. On the palate the wine is deep, full-bodied and impressively soil-driven in personality, with a firm core of fruit, ripe, well-integrated tannins and excellent length and grip on the nascently complex and very well-balanced finish. This is a great wine in the making, but as is always the case with the wines from the Champets, it will demand some extended cellaring to blossom and come fully into its own. Fine, fine juice in the making." John Gilman, View From the Cellar, May/Jun 2017, Issue #69 |