2018 Côte-Rôtie, La Turque, E. Guigal, Rhône

The 2018 Côte Rôtie La Turque offers meatier, more savory, mineral-driven aromatics yet has an incredible core of pure cassis and darker fruits. A straight-up massive wine, it has a stacked mid-palate, terrific freshness, and again, a purity of fruit that’s just off the chart. Despite its overall size and richness, it’s weightless and as graceful as a ballerina. It always needs more time to come around compared to the La Mouline and generally starts to drink beautifully a decade after the vintage.

Smoke- and mineral-accented cherry and blackberry scents, along with powerful suggestions of exotic spices, incense and cracked pepper. Deep-pitched but also energetic on the palate, offering appealingly sweet dark berry, cherry liqueur and floral pastille flavors braced by a spine of juicy acidity. The floral note carries through an impressively long, penetrating finish that shows outstanding clarity and steadily mounting tannins.